^^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chaih Copyright No.. .^** 



Shell! 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BOOK OF 

SUNDAY SERMONS 



MEDITATIONS 

OF 

TWENTY YEARS 

BY 

ADDISON L. LANGDON, 
"THE EVANGELIST." 



SELECTED. 



("31 <' Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in the 
sight."— Psalms XIX:IV. 




QUINCY, ILLINOIS: 

THE EMPIRE PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

1896. 



^ **^*^ Vv 




ADDISON L. LANGDON, EVANGELIST. 
THE AUTHOR. 



THIS VOLUME 

Is dedicated to the intelligent people of the whole civilized world, whose 
minds are free from prejudice and superstition ; whose hearts are pure 
and sympathetit: ; who believe in equal mental, physical and commercial 
rights to all man and womankind, while in pursuit of life, liberty and hap- 
piness. 

THE AUTHOR. 



Copyright, 1896, By Addison L. Langdon, 
All rights reserved. 



PREFACE. 

IN presenting this volume to the public, I only ask that those who read 
its pages may do so carefully, thoughtfully and without prejudice, re- 
membering that an author was never yet born, who could write a book 
that would meet with universal approval, and I am not vain enough to flat- 
ter myself that I am an exception. 

I believe in the principle that all men are created equal ; that each and 
all of us have the right of freedom of thought ; that we may indulge in 
criticisms ; that no class or sect have exclusive rights or privileges ; that 
humanity rather than force, should govern mankind ; that deformities, 
should be concealed, social and all other scandals suppressed ; that fanat- 
icism and bigotry belong to the dark ages ; that true friendship is a jewel 
of great price ; that hypocrisy is an offense against society and those who 
are guilty should be exposed. 

I believe in moriality among man and womankind ; in forgiveness, char- 
ity and humanity ; in assisting along life's rough highway those who are 
earnestly struggling to reach an honorable place in life. I abhor snob- 
bery, despise flunkeyism and hate those whose acts are governed by pol- 
icy. 

I believe in the universal freedom of the mind ; in the right of all to 
persuade others, but deny their right to coerce. I believe that no one 
class should war upon another ; that every man and woman has his or her 
right to personal opinions upon all subjects, and I merely ask those who 
read my Meditutions of Twenty Years, to endorse only such portions as 
may be pleasing to them. 

I have written this volume with malice toward none, with charity for all, 
because I feel the lack of one and need of the other, on equal terms and 
footing with the rest of the human family, and ask for myself the charity 
I solicit for others. 

I am firm in my convictions of life's affairs, but not bigoted, and evi- 
dence, if properly presented, could convince me of my error, and know- 
ing the frailty of all humanity, I ask that the mantle of charity be thrown 



6 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

over all defects and that love, h^pe, sunshine and happiness be the star, 
by which to guide us all into a harbor of rest, security'and peace fL 
we are through with this life, that has been so full of care 

ADDISON L. LANGDON, 
QuiNcv, Illinois. "^^' Evangelist." 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 



SLIDING OVER THE BANK. 



Did you ever pause a moment to reflect on the shortness of human life 
and how abruptly it terminates, notwithstanding all our preparations to 
be ready for the grim monster when he stalks into our presence? Did 
you ever reflect on a human life — 'On your own for example' — or on the 
lives of your friends, and after following closely along the pathway, you 
find you have traversed the long journey and are at the end before you 
know it? Did you ever wonder why it was essential and necessary for 
the human family to undergo so much sorrow and trouble, while fight- 
ing the battles of this life? Well, we have, and long indeed have we 
studied over this human problem, which is yet very muddy. 

Every day we hear the sad and unwelcome news that some of our 
friends have tumbled over the bank into eternity, and then we think, of 
what earthly use has been their life-long worry and pain? Of what use 
is the money or landed possessions they have gained? What good has 
a lifetime spent in accumulation been to them? 

Men and women, in order to save a few dimes or dollars, wear old 
clothes; look ragged, unkempt, slouchy. They starve themselves; they 
deprive their system of all luxuries; they never go to a place of amuse- 
ment; never travel over this grand old country of ours and enjoy its gran- 
deur and loveliness; never entertain company; never possess themselves of 
any of the numerous benefits abounding on every hand. And thus they 
plod along, and some bright morning, right in the midst of another 
economical calculation, they tumble headlong over the bank into death. 

The world is filled with crazy cranks, whose only enjoyment is in the. 
misery they bring upon other people. We have fanatics on temperance, 
on religion, on diet, on dress, on fresh air, on all sorts of subjects, and 
they foist their disgusting and meddling peculiarities on the community 
until they tumble over the bank. Then another fanatic bobs up and takes 
the place of the defunct one. 

Nature left the earth in mighty good shape for us to enjoy, and we 
would enjoy it, too, were it not for the meddling proclivities of some 
people. The world itself is all right, and there is much in it that is bright 
and beautiful. But in our eagerness to discuss our crazy theme, or to 
accumulate more gain, we forget or neglect the beauties of this world, 
and tumble over the bank without an enjoyment, without a pleasure. 



10 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

without a ray of satisfaction, without having benefited the world or the 
people in it, and so we go along, and finally away we go over the bank. 

We cannot, for the life of us, see what some men and women were 
created for. We know some of the former whose solemn faces would 
peel the varnish off the leg of a bar-room chair, and some of the latter 
whose ugly, meddlesome, gossiping, slanderous tongues would stop a 
clock, and yet, in the uneven, ill-shaped order of things, this class waltz 
along, side by side, with the reputable people of this life. We know some 
of these people who have been lying and swindling for years ; but, by and 
by, away they go over the bank. 

The temperance crank thinks of nothing else but making war on all 
those not favoring prohibition, and they are the meanest of all the great 
variety of cranks with which this earth abounds. We know one of these 
hen-pecked lunatics, who will any day in the week, give a stack of boodle 
to persecute an honest man who makes or sells liquor for a livelihood, 
who wouldn't give a dime to relieve the absolute distress and dire neces- 
sities of some homeless woman struggling to maintain her fatherless 
children. We know rank and pusillanimous old humbugs who attend 
church and prayer meetings regularly; who make pretensions of piety 
and long prayers, who are convicted swindlers and dishonorable business 
men, and they look at us and glare like wild beasts and call us infidel; 
but never mind, they will go over the bank too, by and by. 

We know church societies which are the worst dens of gossip in the 
city; we know corner stores which breed disorder every day. We find 
hypocrites and humbugs everywhere; on the streets, in the pulpits, in 
business; but by and by, like all mortality, they will take a header and 
go — over the bank. 

We cannot imagine why people will deliberately make themselves and 
their neighbors and associates so unhappy by exercising their meddling 
propensities. Cranks are born, not made; and so it is explained, per- 
haps, why this class exists. Lunatics and fanatics are produced by much 
long thinking upon one subject. First they become morbid, then wild, 
and a common nuisance to the whole community. But like all the rest, 
they will tumble over the bank after awhile. 

What the people of this world want to grapple with is reality; actual, 
substantial facts. We want to associate with real, true, honest, liberal 
people. You never saw a generous man who was a crank; you never 
saw a liberal-minded man who was a fanatic; you never saw a woman 
who attended strictly to her own affairs who was a slanderer or gossip; 
you never saw a real good, conscientious christian man or woman who 
was always thrusting their evangelical ideas under your nose. We have 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 11 

this class in the world, but, unhappily, like all the rest of us, they have 
got to go over the bank. 

The mortality among the great men has been frightful during the past 
year or two, both at home, in the state and nation ; and with these occur- 
rences before our eyes, it would seem to us that all people should make 
it their aim, their constant study, their ambition, to make their lives a 
pleasure to themselves and friends, instead of making themselves obnox- 
ious and their friends unhappy. A man or woman who has a happy 
home is never a crank or fanatic ; and it's only unhappy homes that breed 
temperance fanatics and salvation armies and loons. You can tell a hen- 
pecked man the instant you look into his mug; and, being pecked out of 
his home, he seizes upon some irrational hobby with which to amuse 
himself. Men who have homes and attentive wives and obedient, respect- 
ful children, have no time, no inclination to mingle with lunatics and fa- 
natics or discuss the evils of things, and so the claim we make is true, that 
a happy home and a family whom we respect will cure all lunacy on things 
present or to come. And, mark our words, and mark your men and 
women, and you will find it as we say it is, that it's the unhappy home that 
gives birth to more of the evils of to-day than all the whisky ever made. 
Our resorts, our clubs, our dens are all supported by men who have been 
driven from unhappy homes. 

So, dear readers, brace up; begin now; forget the past; start fresh, 
and from now, henceforward and forever, make the best of your lives; 
get all the enjoyment you can out of it, for, just as sure as you are a foot 
high, you, like all the rest of the gang — the good, bad and indifferent — 
have got to go Over the Bank. 



FIRE AND FALL BACK. 



We are this night in our room, No. 15, in the Dunlap house ; Jackson- 
ville, and there is a grand dance in progress. The wealth and beauty of 
that city are present, and the merry murmurs of many voices mingle with 
the air. There is music and pleasure and joy, and it takes us way back 
in the past to similar scenes, when the Evangelist had no cares, no re- 
sponsibilities, no thought for the morrow; but years ago we fired and 
fell back. We can now, as we look, scarcely realize that we used to 
waltz up and down hotel halls, just as these people are doing to-night, 
whispering soft nothings to the fair sex, but we did, and by and by these 
thoughtless people will be heads of families, and then they will look back, 
just as we do now, and wonder the same as we now wonder, how they 
ever had the stomach to go through such things ; and so the world goes — 
it's fire and fall back. 

But we guess it is better so, for if we could not forget our pleasures 
and our pains, we would be in constant wretchedness; we would always 
be thinking of one or the other, and be miserable all the while. Each of 
us have some scenes in life that we are glad to remember, and others 
that we are glad to forget; and so the intelligent force that governs the 
affairs of this life, has arranged everything just about right — it gives us 
all a chance to fire and fall back. 

We don't believe there lives a man on this earth who has had more 
fun and more misery than the Evangelist, and yet, as we look around, we 
see the same in other people; so perhaps we are all nearly alike, after 
all. The fun we have is public property; everybody knows of it, and 
they with us, our fun. But our misery, our tears, we share and shed in 
secret, alone and in silence. We have had our fun and we have fired 
and fallen back, to give somebody else a chance to do the same thing. 

History tells us that this condition of things has existed ever since the 
world began. We come into the world and go through it and pass out 
of it precisely alike. There is no change in methods or style. We come 
in, pass through and go ©ut to-day just as they did thousands of years 
ago, and during all these years it has been fire and fall back with all. 

We feel sorry for people sometimes, and no doubt they feel sorry for 
us in the same way, because our tastes, aims and ambitions are so dif- 
ferent. We are sorry for a glum, morose man who sees no joy in youth- 
ful play; we feel sorry for the selfish, cranky hog, who has a pain every 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 13 

time he sees boys enjoying themselves; we feel sorry for those old repro- 
bates who would deprive the youth of his moments of fun; we feel sorry 
for that old hypocrite who sees no sunshine in life save that found in the 
sanctuary; we feel sorry for any and all who cannot, for a time, forget 
themselves and make way for other people. 

Look around you, my beloved, and you can see these people on every 
hand. The world is full of them, of no earthly good to themselves or any- 
body else. They work like slaves all day in their offices and stores. 
You never see them at the opera house enjoying a good play ; they never 
leave home for a trip to other cities; they never have company; no one 
ever drops in to spend a social evening with them; and so they live, and 
by and by they fall back, and ten minutes after they are dead, are for- 
gotten by everybody. 

Every one in this world is given a chance to shoot. If they hit the 
bull's eye they are great; if they miss the center shot, they are guyed by 
the audience. If they win life's battle they are applauded to the echo; 
if they lose, they are roasted by everybody. The successful are by no 
means the most intelligent; indeed, it's the fool who most frequently 
gets to the front, while the wise sit on mats on the door steps. We have 
seen graduates from colleges currying horses for a living; and again 
have we seen the biggest fools on earth holding down positions of honor 
and trust; but each of us has been given an opportunity of firing and 
falling back. 

But, my beloved, when you come to boil this life of our down, there 
isn't much to or of it. No matter who or what we are, we all experience 
about the same pleasures and pains, and life and the end of it is nearly 
alike, one with another. There is one joy and two sorrows, one laugh 
and two cries; one pleasure and two pains, all through life. It was al- 
ways so and always will be. 

It's the ball to-night and katzen-jammer in the morning; it's the frolic 
one day, and settling the damages the next; it's the high old time one 
evening, and recovering with the host the next. 

And so this night, as we listen to the music and the murmur of happy 
voices, we think back a quarter of a century, to a time when we were free 
and thoughtless; to a time when we enjoyed the gayeties of an evening 
of song, dance and merriment, and knowing what sorrows and torments 
we have passed through, we can but think of that other dark day that is 
surely coming to those who are joyous and happy and free this night — to 
those who have before us fired and fell back. Well, it's all right. 



THE SALOON MAN. 



The various cities of all this land contain business places of all sorts, 
at which can be purchased any desired article, and when people wish 
anything they go to the proper stores for it. 

A large volume of the people of this land use stimulants of some sort, 
and for their accommodation the saloon was started and made one of 
the commercial branches of business. 

On the one hand are the patrons of the saloon ; on the other, the haters 
of it. The first named, as a rule, are law-abiding citizens, who visit the 
saloon after their day's work is done, and there quietly enjoy their glass 
of beer. This custom is national, and in some countries is even more 
marked than in our own. 

The regular frequenter of saloons never gets into any difficulty. He 
goes there for a purpose, accomplishes it and departs as quietly as he 
came; and were it this class alone, we would never hear of disturbances 
in our saloons. There are, however, a class of people, and we regret to 
say that they are usually native Americans, who abuse the privileges of 
the saloon, overload themselves with the goods there offered for sale, 
and bring upon the owner of the place all kinds of trouble, which he re- 
grets more than anybody. 

Now, the nature of the Evangelist's business during the past quarter 
of a century has thrown him with the saloon man, and he can truthfully 
say that as a citizen, as a business man and gentleman, the saloon man 
compares very favorably with any other class of business people. He is, 
as a rule, generous, has a high regard for honor and integrity, and is 
all around a good fellow and companion. Occasionally one will creep 
into the saloon business who brings discredit upon the profession, but 
no more or oftener than in other lines of trade. 

We have noticed that the name of the saloon man is always first on 
subscription lists gotten up to pay for conventions and celebrations that 
cities get up, and he is always a liberal contributor to these funds. 
Among the first bills ever paid by a certain church in the city of Quincy, 
Illinois, was one that was paid with the money contributed by the keeper 
of a saloon, and there are now living in that same city honorable, vener- 
able citizens, who forty years ago kept saloons, and they have lost none 
of their respectability because of it, either. The saloon man makes just 
as good a citizen as men from other professions, and much better than 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 15 

the fanatic who loses no opportunity to express his hatred for the saloon 
man and his friends. 

The saloon man is never a bigot; he is absolutely free from prejudice 
and superstition ; his ideas of manhood and honor are much higher than 
many who move in high social circles and express contempt for the man 
of the saloon. The saloon man is generous to a fault, and always gives 
his share in aid of charity and for the relief of those in distress. The 
license moneys contributed to the city treasuries very greatly assist in 
maintaining the police and fire departments, in operating the electric 
light and water works plants, and in keeping in repair the public streets. 
Indeed, without the saloon money property owners would be forced to 
submit to heavier taxation to discharge the public debt. 

Now, these are facts in favor of the saloon man that none can deny, 
and therefore we ask, are they, as an especial class of business men not 
entitled to credit for what they have done and are doing for the benefit 
of the cities of our great country? 

The class of people who hate the saloon man do not reason well ; do 
not argue fairly. Theirs is a one-sided, unreasonable argument, and 
they would shift the responsibility of their views upon the shoulders of 
those who pay the bulk of our taxes. 

Is it logical to argue that because once in a while a man, worn out with 
sorrows and sufferings, shoots himself, that the manufacture of guns 
should be prohibited? Because some worn and weary soul, crushed be- 
neath the weight of his woes, hangs himself now and then, that we should 
discourage the manufacture of rope? Or, because an occasional victim 
finds rest at the bottom of the river, that the stream should be dried up? 
Is it therefore reasonable to argue that because here and there we find 
a man who has become a slave to morphine that no more of the drug 
should be sold? And now to the final conclusion: Is it any more rea- 
sonable to advocate the banishment of the saloon for the reason that here 
and there, at long intervals, some fool drinks himself to death? 

The saloon is a convenience to those who patronize it and not an in- 
convenience to those who do not. If there was not a saloon on earth 
and a man wanted a drink, he would contrive a way to secure it. We all 
know and must admit that. Why, then, should the saloon man be held re- 
sponsible and his business made a target at which to shoot? 

The drug store of a country town is really a worse place than the city 
saloon; and such places contribute no revenue to the town in which 
they thrive. 

Patrons of the saloons are purely voluntary in their acts. No saloon 
man ever leaves his occupation to entice or persuade a man to enter his 
place of business. You do not have to enter unless you choose, and 



16 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

therefore, for the life of us, we cannot see, cannot understand, why even 
a small minority of our people should look so bitterly upon the man 
who keeps a saloon. The saloon is an accommodation to a very large 
class, and their rights and privileges are as sacred to them as are the rights 
and privileges of other men — their opponents — to them. 

Once in a while you will find a bad man among the saloon men. So 
also will you find them among the grocers, the druggists, the dry goods 
men, and in all the other branches of trade and traffic; but this occasional 
black sheep ought not to brand the whole fk>ck. 

We can say for a majority of the saloon men, that their reputation for 
sobriety, honor, integrity and generosity, is vastly at a higher ebb than 
a majority of those who make it their especial and daily business to worry 
and annoy the saloon man. 



HYPOCRITES AND HYPOCRISY, 



The death in Boston of the millionaire Sanborn in a notorious den of 
infamy, which was one of the many similar establishments owned by him, 
is one of the plainest cases on record of the absolute truth of the long 
teaching and preaching of the Evangelist. 

Here was a man, supposed by his neighbors and. friends to be a most 
thoroughly devout man. He was a leader in the church; he was a power- 
ful and apparently earnest exhorter; he talked morality and preached 
virtue, while he was at that very moment owner and operator of a dozen 
or more of the worst gilded palaces of sin in the city of Boston. Among 
his other great charities he built a seminary for young ladies, which he 
proposed to donate to the little city in which he lived, when death over- 
took him in one of his own dens of infamy. 

This is the sort of people we are after, always were after, and always 
will be after. It's these creatures who live double lives, and the 
world is filled with them, who do so much to destroy the con- 
fidence and honor and principle among men and women, boys and 
girls. It is this class of pious scoundrels who serve the devil under their 
religious masks, and the old viper of Boston is but a sample — a specimen 
brick, as it were, of thousands of others just like him all over the world. 

It proves only what we have said a thousand times in the past, and what 
we shall perhaps say a thousand times in the future, that a man is not a 
true, genuine christian, merely because he belongs to a church and leads 
in prayer, and gives liberally to charity. It requires something more 
than a mere outward show of piety to make a man an honorable christian 
gentleman, and so, when such a social outlaw exists, it is the duty of 
the community in which he lives to pull off the mask, tear away the veil 
that covers his sins and stand him up before the world in his true light. 

If you will keep your eyes open you can find just such characters as 
Sanborn of Boston right here at home — men and women who are living 
double lives. They have their two faces — the one beautiful, pleasant and 
sanctimonious ; the other a photograph of horrible nightmare. One face 
that smiles a smile of pious purity; the other a vision of dreadfulness. 
One face for the respectable portion of the community; another for the 
desperate. One face that leads us to believe that its wearer is a saint; 
another that tells us he is a human devil. These people are they who 
breed disorder and corruption and distress. It is these vile hypocrites 



18 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

who startle the world with their evils when exposure comes, as it will 
certainly come to all who violate nature's laws or outrage common 
decency. 

It is the taking into our churches of such creatures that lies our main 
objection. It is because the leaders and rulers and deacons and elders 
and vestry do not inquire into men's characters more thoroughly before 
extending to them the right hand of fellowship. It is because they are 
so easily gulled and imposed upon that makes many of them simple in 

our eyes. 

There is not a clergyman on earth who has more respect for honor, 
principle, virtue and all goodness than the Evangelist. Neither is there 
one who more thoroughly hates hypocrisy and hypocrites and hypo- 
critical ways, and if we expose some of these human beasts we must be 
pardoned. They exist in this city to-day, and every hour they are deceiv- 
ing you and others. They belong to the church, they sneak into saloons 
by the back doors and drink alone; they visit breweries, and to induce 
the owners thereof to subscribe money in aid of railroads, they drink beer, 
while noted for their crazy temperance views. They lead in prayer meet- 
ing and sit for days and days at their tables without speaking a word to 
their wives and children. They lead prayer meetings Wednesday night 
and sand their sugar Thursday morning. They pray Sunday and pound 
their horses Monday. They sing psalms Tuesday at home and swear at 
their employes Saturday in the office. 

Such men live here to-day and they belong to the church, and yet do 
all the beastly things we have enumerated above. These men are every- 
where, and you have only to consult the daily telegrams to learn their 
names and residences and crimes and misdemeanors. 

Most people who belong to our churches are good and conscientious ; 
they never do wrong themselves, and because they are so simple and pure, 
they believe everybody else is so. But they are not by a very large 
majority, and it is because they don't kick these hypocrites out that lies 
the weakness of their institutions and the secret of our objections. 

Sin and hypocrisy, sinners and hypocrites are not new. The Lord 
had a hypocrite with him at the last supper, and there has been one at 
every supper since that time. Every church in the world has upon its 
rolls of membership hypocrites, and every pious gathering shows up one 
or more of them. It is perhaps necessary for the successful conduct of 
the world to have these specimens, just as we have bed bugs and mos- 
quitos and snakes. Perhaps they perforin some useful ofifice, as posing 
as models to shun. But to ordinary mortals on the outside it is difficult 
to understand what they wore ever created for, or of what earthly good 
they are to civilization, and yet we have them. We cannot understand 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 19 

why we have boils and ring worms and the itch and piles, but we have 
them all the same, and possibly for some good purpose, the true inward- 
ness of which we do not know. It is, however, hard for us to tell what 
hypocrites were ever made for, unless it be to make some one who might 
otherwise be happy, trouble. 

Hypocrisy develops in all sorts of places. We find it among those 
whom we have looked upon as our friends. We find it in our own 
neighborhoods; it's among brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts; it 
lurks beneath the smiles of the beautiful, and we find it in the glare of the 
fiend. It comes to the surface at church sociables and donation parties 
and at the singing schools. It floats to the surface in the counting room 
and factory and store. We detect it in the merchant with whom we trade, 
and in the kid who runs our errands. It slops over among politicians, 
and it jars the domestic circle. Hypocrisy is everywhere — in doors and 
out. We bump up against it on the week day and Sunday. It is carried 
in the parson's phiz, and it nestles in the mischievous eyes of the sisters 
of the parish. We encounter hypocrisy in our daily walks and we dream 
of it at night. It is found in the highways and alleys; in halls of legisla- 
ture ; in the court room ; in the police station ; in the parlors of our homes, 
as well as in the sanctuary and among "sanctified" people. 

Hypocrisy is a national institution and indulged in by the people of the 
whole world. It seems to be a part of the machinery of the universe, 
without which we could not n.m successfully, and yet as we look at it and 
dispise hypocrites, we cannot see any use for either. We fail in our 
understanding of the necessities which seem to require the existence of 
either of them. 

We know that it is natural for some men and women to be hypocritical 
in their daily ways and speeches. By and by we come to know these 
people, and then, no matter how truthfully they may speak, or how 
honestly they may act, we don't and won't believe them. And yet, day 
after day, these same people will go from door to door, from friend to 
friend and rattle off their hypocritical cant by the yard, expecting us to 
believe all they say. 

There is no cure for hypocrisy — it was always with us and always will 
be. We can only expose it whenever we have an opportunity, and do 
our best to throttle the beast wherever found. When a friend, a pro- 
fessed friend, proves himself or herself a hypocrite, it will not do to pass 
the matter over lightly, but we must make an exposure of the treacherous 
friend, and by such exposure prevent others from being deceived. 

Men talk to you every day and you know they are lying; yet you say 
nothing, and why is this? Why not let them know at once that you are 



20 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

"onto" their hypocrisy and deceit and falsehood, and this would save 
some other victim and perhaps reform the hypocrite in a measure. 

The world is full of them ; the clubs and churches and societies overrun 
with them. They are as numerous as thistles and as dangerous as veno- 
mous reptiles. They create trials and troubles everywhere and among 
everybody with whom they come in contact. They are brazen in their 
boldness and vile in their villainy, and if there is anything in this world 
or the next we have more to fear, it's a hypocrite and his or her hypocrisy. 



MOTHER. 

Was there ever a sweeter, more blessed word coined than that which 
forms the topic for our Sermon this day? 

Mother — how much does this mean to those of us who can only occa- 
sionally look at the little mound in the church-yard that covers all that 
remains mortal of mother. 

Others have their mothers with them, and not one in a thousand ap- 
preciates the fact, but those who have no mother pass many a sad hour 
in sorrowful reflection. 

What would we not do if we only had that dear old mother back again 
in our home. We can see it now, we can appreciate it now, we can re- 
member many and many a time when our conduct has sorely grieved that 
good old soul. We did not mean to bring sorrow upon the mother, but 
we did, and now we spend our remaining lives regretting it. 

We do not believe in envy, we are always glad that others have and 
can enjoy what we cannot, and yet every time we see a family group with 
a dear old mother in her arm chair, with her knitting and her bible, we 
somehow do feel just a little envy creeping through our vitals. 

Most men love their wives — some do not, and they have good cause. 
Most men love their children — some do not, and generally there is a good 
reason therefor. But a dear old mother is beloved and honored by all 
men. She positively can do no wrong; she never has, never will, and so 
all men love their mothers. 

Boys, those of you who still have your mothers with you, honor them 
every hour you live. No matter how seemingly foolish or absurd her 
little requests of you, grant them. Let it be your one great end and 
aim to do whatever your mother requires or requests you to do. You 
will never be sorry — never regret having done so. 

The Evangelist laid his dear old mother away in Rose Hill, Chicago, 
eleven years ago, and we have missed her every hour since that unhappy 
day, and shall continue to miss her until the end. We have spent many 
sad hours since that day eleven years ago, regretting that we had not 
more fully, more thoroughly appreciated her many kindnesses, her many 
deprivations and denials on our account. 

Men's wives now days are merely the fulfillment of a legal contract, 
and they are subject to all the flaws and crevices that things human are 
heir to. But a man's mother never fails. She is always true, always 



22 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

loyal, always ready and willing to deny herself that her boy may be more 

happy. 

Men's children when little, know nothing of life or its deceptions and 
frauds, are very dear to them, but how quickly the years slip by and the 
baby boy becomes a man, only to break the heart of the dear old mother 
who has worried and toiled and prayed for years for this same son. The 
mother is always there, right at your side. She has a prayer and a con- 
solation and encouragement for you every time. She never fails. While 
the wife takes a whack at your character and your children disgrace, 
humiliate and mortify you by their conduct, the mother remains a monu- 
ment to your glory every hour and day. She is never wrong. While 
wives, and children, and relatives assault your character, throw obstacles 
in your way, destroy your ambitions, the good old mother is always ready 
to apologize for your short-comings, your failures, your weaknesses. 
You are always her idol, her joy, her pride, and no matter how low you 
may sink in the mire of human degradation, the mother still loves, still 
clings to you after every one else on earth has given you the dirty shake. 

The bible, which so many believe in implicitly, tells you to cling to 
your mother to the exclusion of everybody else — good counsel that. We 
say so too, boys, stick to your mother; be guided by her advice, swayed 
by her love, influenced by her desires, for she is your best friend — the 
best you ever had, ever will have. Boys, there are wives to bum, but 
you can never get another Mother. 



THE WORLD. 



No one knows just how long- this round ball or square substance called 
the world, has been in existence; no one knows who made it, or how; 
no one knows what it is made from or for, or what the end of it will be, 
if an end there is, and yet you can find scores of people who profess to 
know all the above enumerated things. 

The scientific searcher through archives gives the age of the world in- 
completely, but guesses it to be in the neigliborhood of thirty millions of 
years. The evangelical teacher professes to know who made the world, 
and how and why and all about it, but we imdertake to say that he knows 
no more of this world than you or we or any of us. 

That the world is beautiful and well made, the most ugly, desperate 
and depraved among mankind are forced to admit. They cannot deny 
either, that it is filled with everything which can be of any possible 
use or advantage to man and womankind, yet at the same time we also 
know that this same beautiful world contains much that is bad or can 
be corrupted to bad uses and for bad purposes. 

In the creation of this world everything was most thorough and com- 
plete, and like that procession which marched up the gang plank into the 
ark one day long ago, we have to-day two of each and every kind and two 
of the opposite. 

In this world we find venomous serpents whose bite is death, and in 
the very grass where the poisonous reptile hides grows a cure for its 
deadly sting. The death dealing and life-saving herb and plant grow 
side by side. We have material and facilities for producing heat and cold 
and light, and yet we can meet our death at the hands of each of these 
agencies, which we employ for our comfort. We have material from 
which we construct our weapons of defense, and some people mis-apply 
these things and use them for assassination and murder. We grow com 
and rye and squeeze it into whisky, which will either prolong or shorten 
a human life, according to the manner of its use. We have that which 
kindles flame, and by its side an extinguisher. We dig into the earth 
and find there iron and coal and gas, and we bottle it up and use it to 
make any and all sorts of things which will be of service to us and assist 
us in our life's endeavors. We have animals of each and every kind 
which we capture, subdue and educate for our own convenience and com- 
fort. We have something in this great and busy world for everybody 



24 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

to (1(1, and tlwsc who are therefore uneni]iloyc(l, are so of their own free 
will and accord. They arc idle, either from laziness or from pride — lazy 
and will not work or too proud to accept inferior situations, and so we 
have come to the conclusion that this world is all right, but it's the 
dogoncd ornery people in it who make the fullest enjc^yment of this world 
impossible. 

Some of us, therefore, in our view of life and its requirements, feel that 
our mission is to preach the gospel, and then those who entertain opposite 
views become opponents, and a row is inaugurated immediately. One 
man is an actor and is at once pounced upon by the religious world, and 
then another war is begun. One man drinks beer or liquor and up hops 
the temperance crank, and these two elements clash. One man believes 
in enjoying his life and he freely spends the money he has made, and at 
once a crowd of jealous observers pronounce him a spendthrift, and these 
two fight. It's license or anti-license; it's white against black; it's the 
christian against the unbeliever; it's a war of races; a war of appetite; a 
war of labor; of religion; of sexes. It's woman's rights; franchise; taxa- 
tion ; reform ; extravagance, all the while, and each of these and thousands 
•of other questions, have earnest and intelligent champions and advocates, 
who argue for or against, according to convictions or policy, and so we 
are all at war with each other and cordially hate each other for the views, 
ideas and notions we each entertain and embrace. This was always so; 
always will be so, and we cannot hope to ever reach that point where we 
shall all think, feel and act together as one, on any matter, thing or 
subject. 

There is, however, a way, by improving which we may all lead happier 
lives; it's a simple, easy way, and that is merely to mind your own busi- 
ness. This was the view all men once entertained in this country, and 
it was the motto stamped upon the early coin made in America, and to 
this day coin collectors have old specimens, upon the face of which you 
will find the motto: "Mind your own business." This is all there is of 
and to it — mind your own business, If you need a drink take it; if not 
let it alone. If you want a chew or smoke enjoy yourself thus; if not you 
may abstain. If you want to attend church go; if not remain away. If 
there is a hole in your sock, don't examine the heel of every one else to 
find a similar rip in order to justify your own neglect, but mind your own 
business. If you are a churchman don't despise and persecute and scan- 
dalize every one who is not. 

If our readers will practice this the people of the world will be made 
better and the lives they lead will be more pleasant, more enjoyable and 
more in keeping with the beauties of that greatest of all creations — The 
World. 



RUPTURES A SPECIALTY, 



Vultures are always found hovering over carrion; buzzards fly over 
and about where rot is thickest and loudest; gossips and slanders abound 
where scandal is uppermost. This world, my beloved, is full of people 
who live and wax fat in slandering other people ; their happiest hour is 
that in which most wretchedness reigns, the result of their evil tongues. 

The devil smiles most when the righteous go wrong and so do the 
depraved among mankind rejoice when a good man or a good woman 
falls down. These are dealers in ruptures — they make ruptures a 
specialty. 

Why the good Lord ever created these people is something we cannot 
comprehend ; why these dealers in ruptures are ever permitted to live to 
worry and annoy the decent among the great human family, is beyond 
our comprehension and yet they exist, they thrive, they prosper. Indeed 
they are uppermost in the affairs of this life. 

As we look back over a few years, we are tormented beyond expression. 
We have encountered obstructions; we have bumped up against reverses; 
who have played to hard luck. We have seen the sunshine turn black 
in an hour; we have waded through floods and battled with the waves 
and storms of life and have seen many a proud and haughty family hum- 
bled to the dust and these have all been the goods delivered by those who 
make ruptures a specialty. 

We have seen bright and happy homes transformed into sepulchers;. 
we have seen popular men and women converted into frozen pillars; we 
have seen the rich reduced to poverty and the poor elevated to positions 
of wealth and power; we have seen men die and their widows and children 
"splurge" on the life insurance; we have seen the tears of widows and 
orphans make wide rivers upon which the profligate sail happily. 

We have seen society break up homes; and we have seen the recep- 
tion and the breakfast and the tea bust up many a family circle and thus 
furnish fuel for the dealer in deformities and ruptures. We have seen 
men and women abandoned for other men and women; we have seen 
mansions torn down and other homesteads erected in their steads; we 
have seen young men and innocent children made prominent figure heads 
-in notorious scandals; we have seen the children of rulers — of leaders, 
going from store to store seeking employment; we have seen the wives 
of wealthy merchants, earning a poor living, clerking in stores — acting as 



26 MEDITATIONS OV TWENTY YEARS. 

cashiers or clerks, and we have seen low down, ignorant porters in our 
stores grow and prosper and become leaders in the business community. 
We liave seen the sons and daughters of rich and influential citizens be- 
come ordinary drudges in the family; we have seen the lofty humiliated 
and the lowly exalted; we have seen the rotten and corrupt among the 
human family made leaders of "society" and the worthy and just reduced 
to the lowest levels. We have seen people who once possessed that pearl 
of great price — a good name, who would sacrifice all for a few dollars' 
worth of trade; we know men and women who have invaded other homes 
only to break them up, who are this day more resi)ec(ed in the conmnmity 
than arc the men and women who have lived true and faithful and honor- 
able and virtuous lives all their days. 

We know men and women who have stolen in and sneaked away the 
love and affection of the husband and the wife and we can now look back 
over the wreck and the ruin wrought. 

There may be a future — a pimishment — a penalty for all the sorrow 
inflicted on this eartli and we hope from the bottom of our heart there is, 
but somewhow or other it seems, it looks to us that the villain — the rascal, 
the ungrateful, the deceiver and the fraud had a corner on all of this life's 
afTairs and they who best succeed, so it seems, are those who make rup- 
tures a specialty. 



'* THIS ^ERE AND THAT AIR/' 



When you come to think about it the people of this world arc a queer 
lot. We all act queer, do queer things and we are queer and peculiar in 
all sorts of ways. 

One man and one woman do things that they heartily condemn in 
another man and woman. We find fault with other people for doing 
just and only what we do ourselves. We criticise the acts and habits 
and customs of our neighbors and forget seemingly that we have these 
very same faults ourselves. We arc pleasant and angry; happy and sad; 
we love and hate; we succeed and fail; we are generous and stingy, and 
so we all go through life. It's "this ere and that air." 

When we are children we think our lot a hard one. We are greatly 
disappointed when our parents refuse us the little things of this life, but 
great Scott, how gladly we would go back to those childish days after 
reaching the estates of men and women. 

We often think how peculiarly are we all constructed. Some how or 
other things don't fit; there are many loose joints in all our lives; there 
are crevices and cracks that we cannot, do not fill. Some of us arc rich 
and too stinking mean to enjoy our wealth; some of us are poor and 
we possess a constant desire to do something for the benefit of man and 
womankind. Those of us who would do good have no money and those 
who care nothing for the unfortunate among the human family are lousy 
with boodle. Those of us who would do good with our money haven't 
got any and those who wouldn't, have barrels full, and so we say that 
things are very much out of joint in this life we are doing our best to live. 

Some of us who spring from nothing, from nowhere, are all of a sudden 
lifted up to the top of life's great ladder and some of us who have a noble, 
patriotic inheritance are rolled over and over in the mud of society and 
business. 

People occupy high and honorable positions all over this country who 
are not entitled to the honor that is being conferred upon them. We 
know people who belong to swell clubs who are socially and morally 
rotten; who hang around theaters and flirt with the ballet; who arc full 
every night; who have inflicted untold misery on their own families by 
their dissipation and neglect. They have run through thousands of dol- 
lars of their father's money and yet wear good clothes and train in re- 
putable circles, who, if they had what justly belong to them and what 



28 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

they have earned, would be in the chain gang doing street work. It's 
"this ere and that air." 

We don't know how it is but it seems as though things were out of 
joint, but whether it is always the fault of individuals or not we are not 
prepared to say. 

We know people who have tried awfully hard to make a successful 
"go" of this life and have failed, and we know others who have made 
no effort and have been pushed away up on top and this is dead wrong. 
People have been honored and praised who were utterly unworthy, and 
other people have been snubbed and neglected who were entitled to the 
highest praise. Dissipated men and women haye succeeded while the 
sober have failed ; those who have attended strictly to their business have 
seen their resources slip away from them year after year, while those who 
are grossly negligent of their business affairs are piling up dollars day 
after day, with no eflfort of their own 

There are scores of good, honorable but poor young men and women 
in every city and community who are especially fitted by nature to fill 
the highest places in social and business life, who are now, always were, 
always will be at the bottom. The more successful are using those people 
as door mats upon which to wipe their feet. 

Still, my beloved, don't g'ive up ; hang on ; you possess one thing sure, 
viz.: a personal knowledge of the fact that you are doing right, even 
though you are not a financial or commercial success. You possess that 
which the dishonorable among mankind would give all they were worth 
to possess, a clear conscience. 

It is not always the case that the men most solid financially are the 
happiest; it is not always the smiling face that covers a happy, light heart; 
it is not always the round and ringing laugh that tells the truth of the feel- 
ings under cover — that you cannot see ; it is not the cheerful appearance 
that always indicates happiness by a large, round majority; it is not the 
boaster who is the most prosperous; it is not the man with the best clothes 
who has the most money; it is not the braggart who makes the reliable 
citizen. 

We tell you, my beloved, things in this life are very much out of joint, 
they are not what they seem. The world is full of shams and frauds and 
humbugs and you cannot depend upon your nearest friends, as a rule, in 
cases of emergency. 

Be good and true to yourselves; do what is best for your own personal 
good and for the good of your own families; do not anticipate the friend- 
ships of those whom you are pleased to call friends; do not waste your 
precious moments in figuring on a future. Take things just as you find 
them; make the best of everything you have; do not expect anything 



/ MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 29 

and this is the only way you can save yourselves from bitter disappoint- 
ments, for this whole life, when you come to sum it up, is a contmued 
series of loves and hates; successes and failures; hopes and fears; sun- 
shines and storms; pleasures and pains scattered all the way through each 
and every life — it's "this ere and that air." 



RICH WITHOUT MONEY, 

Many a lunii is rich witlunil money. Tliousands of men with nothings 
in their pockets, atul thousands withont even a pocket are rich. A man 
honi with a i;oo(l, sotuul constitnticMi, a good stomach, and a good heart 
and tj-ood limbs, a pretty good head piece, is rich. Good bones are better 
than gold, tongh nnisdes than silver, and nerves that flash fire and carry 
energy to every fnnction are better than houses and l;nuls. It is better 
than a landed estate to have the rigiit kind of father and mother. Clood 
breeds and bad brcetls exist amtMig men as really as among herds and 
horses, luhication may do nmch to check evil tendencies or to develop 
good ones, bnt it is a great thing to inherit the right proportitMi of facnl- 
ties to start with. The man is rich who has a gi)od dispositicm, who is 
natnrally kind, patient, cheerful, hopeful, and who has a flavor of wit and 
fun in his composition. The hardest tliiug to get on with in this life is a 
man's own self. A cross, sellish fellow, a despondent and complaining 
fellow, a limitl and care-burdened man, these are all born deformed on 
the inside. They do not limp, but their thoughts do. 

Wlu\ among the intelligent wcndd take a rich man's gold if his with- 
ereil limbs went with it? Who would aceei>t riches coupled with organic, 
hereditary diseases? Who woifld take as a gift a private box in the safety 
vaults fdleil with rich secm-ities if deformity of body and mind went with 
it. Ah, my beloved, lots of you are rich but you don't know it. 

But what will riches ni>t do. We know men who have married women 
who were mentally and physically deft>rmed, merely and only because 
they were rich and they are going through life childless, yet with barrels 
of money. Piieir lumies are fine and are filled with all that art and 
science can produce, yet you hear no sweet voic<" of children, nor the pat- 
ting of children feet upon the velvet that covers the floor of these elegant 
homes. 

Yes, indeetl, the possessor of a good liver is rich; they who can eat and 
sleep are rich ; those who are physically whole are rich, though they have 
not one single dollar in this whole world. It is the custom, the habit of 
people to ct>m]ilain of their poverty, and even does this extend to those 
whose incomes they cannot spend, so large is it. We find fault with 
something or somebody every day and say if we only were rich, how very 
dift'erent would even'thing be, and, while thus complaining we never for 
one moment express our thanks for the strong minds and bodies we arc 



MKDITATIONS OF TWIONTY VKARS. 



31 



arryinp around with us every clay. Rich without numey- <• s of us .uc, 
^it we don't know it, don't appreciate it, yet we are noh just the sanu 
'"oT^hat earthly .cod is money-riches to one defonned to ..e w. .^^^^ 
and twisted with diseases, to one deaf or dund, or hhnd. W^^'^ ^^^^ 
does nu,ney do a ,nan drawn out of shape with Ihe vanous ,1 hat the 
; : n:sh is heir to and yet half the people of the wor 1 w<>uM 1. cj^n^ 
wilhu^^ to assun.e all these disagreeable defortnU.es of hfe for the ni 
herilance of a fortune. How do you account for it? 

cll health, a strong, well balanced mind; a iK.dy free f--^^-- ; ;;;^ 
aihnents is a fortune to any man or wo.nan. When P'^y-- ; ^ >^ - 
overtake the luuuan fanuly it's a good tlung to be possessed of the n es 
sary dollars to buy relief. Money is a good tlung to seeure u.auy <.f he s 
pleasures, but good health is vastly belter than riches an<l th<.se u. the 
enjoyment of it are tmwise not to manifest an earnest apprec.atu.n of 
their possession of good health. ..„..;i ,,nr 

Weahh is a good thing and most of us w(mld be glad t<. avad < ur 
selves of what it will bring in the way of life's luxuries and pleasures. We 
are constantly and forever thinking, planning sehemi.ig after nehes a,u 
at the same time abusing or neglecting the fortune we already possess ni 
our sound eonstitution-in om- good bones, good stomach, goo.i hver, 
good muscles, good head. We lose what we already have n, our eager- 
ness to secure that which we have not. 

We can Uve an.l enjoy our hves with goo.l health, but may be wretehe<l 
and miserable witli poor lualth an<l a hogshead of gold. 

People worth millions die in asylums for the insane, or are followed 
about by hired watehmen; people with millions die like dogs on the 
velvet carpets of their elegant homes-fall in fits and their tmlhons do 
them no good; i)eople worth millicms would give it all if they ccndd eat 
and enjoy, like their eoaehmen, a <linner of hog and cabbage. The dig- 
ger of our ditches; the laborers on our railroads, though poor in purse, 
are rieh in health and strong eonstitutions. M^he woodsawyer enjoys his 
life far better than the railn.a.l king with the .lyspepsia. 1 he hod-earner 
is, by far, the better of the two men if the other one has pois.m in his 

blood. • 1 1 • c I. 

So my belove.l, take eourage— care for your own physical bemg hrst. 
If riches comes to you, all right, but of the twc^ seek first utter good 
health— it is vastly better than gold. 



A GREAT GANG. 

Wlu'ii litis world was cMvalocl, it was cssoiitial aiul nccossary Hint all 
sorts of "liviiip; and rroopiiijj^" thinj^'s should inliabit the earth and so they 
were created and tlu'\' weiH" made to walk and riiH-p and crawl (»ver the 
surface of this j^reat i^lohi". 

Just why some of these things were made is not at all clear to ns. It 
seems that many of the criminals and insects that creep and crawl over 
the surface of tlu> earth are useless, but, a wise creator, evidently knew his 
business when he maimfaelmrd all of these vari()us thinj;s. b'or ex- 
ample, we can sih- no use f(»r the snake or moscinito, but thini^s were made 
for some pfood pmpose and because we i\o not uiuU'rstand this piu'pose, 
is our misfortmie. 

So, perhaps it is that amonjif life's hnnian family there are people who 
are beyond oiu- understandiufjf. There aie born every year, swindlers and 
frauds and liars aiul they g'o abiutl doiu};' all the harm they can. 

h'or example, take a rawboned, ugly woman j^ossip. She goes from 
Jiouse to house with her scandal, her lies, and she continues this thing 
mitil she plays herself out then she goes to prohibition Iowa or some 
other state and opens up her "vials of wrath" on an innoci-nl and imsus- 
pecling comnumity, with the same result. 

It lakes si>me time to "get onto" this scandal monger set, but we ^\o it 
fast and llu-n Ihi-ir inlluence is gone in our midst. ()f all the crimes on 
the calendar, we hold that ingratitude is the worst. 

We have kiu)wn pi'ople before now who, while accepting yoiu" hos- 
pitality were going from house to lu>usi" defaming yonr character. These 
hell cats Im-ned loose on a ei)nnnunily. have made many enenues; they 
have caused imfavorable opinitms; they have worried ymi and brought 
Wpon you shame and mortilication. ^\>t what are you going to do about 
it? These infamous gossips have had their say and yon must wait for 
the "natural order of things" to regulate matters. 

But gossips who an- goviMiied eithei- by malict^ ov cmii^sitv. are always 
dangerous ami to steer away frtMU them slK>uld be our daily aim. The 
man or woman who windil repeat his or her information for his or her 
own benefit or protil is a fraud and a humbug and all respt-ctable people 
should slum them. 

We have sulTered at the hands of these gn^.ssips and have wailed vears 
iov mailers io right ihem.selve.v Hut a life of correctness will win in the 



MEDITATIONS OK TWENTY YEARS. 33 

end, and no matter how black yon arc painted by the f^'ossips, the rosnlt 
will be in your favor by and by if yon do ri^ht. 

Every now and then yon will hear that a man who has hitherto walked 
in paths of pleasantness and peace has gone to the devil. Well, you 
shudder a conple of times and pretend to feel sorry, bnt all the while you 
have your eye on the gad-about, gossipinj^' wife of this ])oor devil who 
simply grew weary of his burdens and lay down on the wayside and died. 
The lost soul is at rest and the gossi]">ing wife who drove the husband 
to drink and death is still alive, sealtering"_I".er venom abroad throughout 
the land. 

She is universal — her name is legion and she aliounds everywheri" on 
the earth. All the day and all the night yi)U can see the elTects of the 
burning, blighting, withering results of this ugly gossiping vvoman's 
venomous tongue. 

Headstones mark graves all over this world thai coiUain the bones of 
men driven into these graves, by the neglect of homes while the wives 
were abroad .sowing .seeds of malice and discontent among a whole com- 
munity. 



CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES. 



There is perhaps no one thinLi; more than another that will stininlate 
a man or woman to strive for some eovetod prize, more than that trained 
by daily experience. 

Every man and woman on this earth is fitted ftir some one special tiling^ 
more than another. Some oi ns are destined to till high and honorable 
positions and some of ns to i'lll the low and dishonorable places in life. 
Some of lis are destined to be rich in this world's goods and some so poor 
that we can scarcely live. Some of ns become pillars in the church and 
some get tired out of the church for our dissolute conduct. Some of us 
wear puiple anil fine linen and some arc clothed in rags and tatters. 
Some of us are lucky and some arc the reverse of this. Some are for- 
tunate in all of the affairs of life and some directly the opposite. Some 
of us sliile into an association with the aristocratic and the learned and 
cultured and some flounder around in social sloughs and are covered all 
over with social filth, and yet it is not always the most worthy who occupy 
the high places nor the most unworthy who occupy the low positions. 
Circumstances alter cases. 

We have known some of the ver}^ best men on earth to sink way down 
in business and society who were once way ui>, and, my beloved, there 
was some good reason for it. 

Men of standing, of brain, of ability, swim along smoothly for many 
years and then all of a sudden quite unexpectedly, you see them flounder- 
ing in the greatest depths of despair. They know the cause, but you do 
not. You therefore censure them when they are entitled to and should 
have your entire sympathy — your pity, your respect. 

l\len often in this life labor for years in a mental way to accomplish 
a certain thing and then after all these years of anxiety, sorrow, trouble, 
they finally capture what they were after only to find they have got 
nothing after all, and the rest of their lives is spent in regret and humilia- 
tion. Men often bait their hooks and throw them into the stream. Their 
visions of big fish is great and by and by they get a bite, they pull and 
catch that which torments them the remainder of their lives. 

We have known men right here where we write who were good, true 
and noble. They were popular with their fellow men, they were re- 
peatedly selected to fill high and honorable offices of this land. Every 
where they went you found sunshine in their faces and their very presence 



MEDITATIONS OF TWKNTY YEARS. 35 

was the sij,mal for the j;-Hstenin<:: of the brij^htcst rays of Hpi'ht. These 
men lived to the glory of us all and yet one morning they have been 
found dead in their beds with a bullet hole through their heads, and the 
whole city mourned. My beloved, there was something of a private 
nature worrying those poor men. In the midst of all their apparent pleas- 
ures there was some secret trouble eating into their vitals and before it 
reached the fatal sjiot they killed themselves, and then their former friends 
wondered why. Circumstances alter cases. 

The fact is, my beloved, that men do not receive the crelit due them 
for their many good (lualifications; the good things they do pass un- 
noticed without compliment, while the bad is telegraphed by a thou- 
sand tongues all over the world. People as a rule are only too glad to 
circulate the evil things done by humanity while very slow in speaking 
of their good deeds, and this is why the great poet said that the evil men 
do lives after them, while the good perishes with their bones; and that's 
right, they do. 

One now days can vScarccly meet any crowd of people, socially, either 
at home, in the office, at the hotel, on the train, anywhere, but that the 
conversation drifts at once into gossip or scandal. It seems to be epi- 
demic, and yet if you will notice carefully you will see that it's always the 
uncultivated, the ignorant, the common people, who give the greatest cir- 
culation to social dissipations and evils. 

We tell you, dearly beloved, that when a good man goes wrong, there 
is something behind it all that explains matters, and it ought to serve as 
an apology for such men, but it rarely does. The wrong is at once con- 
demned by almost everybody — the cause or causes leading to the wrong 
are never discussed or even thought of, and so it is that circumstances 
alter cases. 

If people would only learn to compliment men for their good deeds 
and performances and never speak of the bad ones, this great people 
would all be happier, more contented and more full of the pleasures of 
this life than the best of us now are. But this is a difficult lesson to learn, 
and generations have come and gone, and still the lesson is not learned, 
and possibly never will be; but we still live in hopes that there may be a 
great reform in all humanity by and by, and if it ever does come you will 
not have so many opportunities to quote our Sermon that "Circumstances 
Alter Cases." 



HE WHO HAS A FRIEND FINDS A TREASURE. 

A friend, a real, true, good friend, is something to admire, be proud of 
— almost worship. A friend is better than all the relations in the whole 
world. A friend is of more value to a man than any other single blessing 
we can name. There are many called, but few chosen when the matter 
of a true friend is considered. 

Scores of people daily profess to be your friend, but when you try 
them you find how woefully you were in error. Scores of people are 
loud in your praise when with certain crowds, but they are first to de- 
nounce you when with a gang entertaining opposite views. Scores of 
people say pleasant things about you only when they have reason to be- 
lieve that their sayings will be repeated to you. Had they not so believed 
their pleasing speeches would have been unspoken. 

"A friend in need is a friend indeed," is an old rhyme which means 
much and is quite true ; for if there is ever a time in this world when a 
man needs a friend, it's in the time of his great need and dire necessity. 
Then a friend develops into just what he professes to be. 

To some of this world's people we take kindly, even before we have 
€ver met them. We have formed an opinion of them, somehow or other 
— just how we cannot explain, but it's a good opinion we have of them. 
Then, there are others, to whom we have never spoken a word, whom we 
naturally dislike or despise, and for the life of us, we cannot intelligently 
answer why. 

Nature is a genius, and it has provided all mankind with a trade-mark 
which cannot be counterfeited. The sneak and outlaw and hypocrite are 
branded by this nature as with a red-hot brand of iron. Their mugs tell 
us of their character the moment we look at them, and among such as 
these we never look for a friend, unless, perchance, we are of this stripe 
ourselves, and then we bunch together as do hogs in a distillery pen in 
cold weather. 

A prosperous man — one with the sunshine streaming in at the windows 
of his life, has no special use for friends. To be sure, they are conven- 
ient to have in the house, like a shoe-buttoner, but he has no real need 
of them. When a man is making money and piling away his dollars 
as rapidly as he accumulates them, he has no need of friends. When a 
man is courted and flattered and petted and sought after by this world's 
people he has no need for friends. When everything comes his way and 



MEDITATIONS OK TWENTY YEARS. 37 

no clouds arc to be seen; vvlicn his crops n])cn and his stock fattens and 
flourishes; when l)e has no (lel)ls hoverinf^ over him to weigh him down; 
when his family are gathered abcnit him and he surveys his smiling, 
happy domestic circle, he cares nothing for friends. Or, in his later life, 
when he sees his children happily married and with little families of their 
own growing up about them, he cares not then for friends. Ikit by and 
by, when floods and famine and calamity overtake such hitherto hai)])y 
people, then it is that friends come handy. When his home is broken 
up by disasters over which he could ejcercisc no control; when 
the "profits" of his jjusiness figure up on the side of loss; when his cro]is 
fail and his hogs drop all over the farm with cholera; when Inuniliation 
and disgrace stare him in the face; when overwhelmed by debt; when 
his children go wrong; when his plans and schemes miscarry; when 
bad habjls overcome him; when he totters vvitli inebriation or shakes 
from opium or morphine; when lie finds himself the only responsible en- 
dorser on tile note ui a busted companion; these, boys, are the times 
when a man needs friends. If they come to the fr(jnt at such times they 
are friends indeed. 

Do not believe everything men tell ycm about their true, real, lasting 
friendship, for there are many great liars in this world, as, no doubt, 
many of our congregation have already found oul. 

The Iwangelist can look back twenty-five years and see men to-day 
who professed ardent friendslii]) for us, who were only hypocrites of the 
deepest dye. And we can also see others whom we shall never fcjrgct 
for their great kindness to the homeless l)oy in those early days. We 
have had the j)leasure of helping some of the latter in their later lives. 
Some are dead and g(jne, but their memcjry will be c ver cherished by us, 
and the renmants of their families we hold in marked esteem. Some ])layed 
us successfully for a sucker, and we, like a iool, swallowed ho(^k, bait and 
line, and when it came to the test of their friendshi]), they were gone — 
went out to "see a man." It has cost us a goodly number of dollars, but 
we have learned something — it has helped us j)reach our sermons, which 
we hope will steer others away from the deceptions and treachery of pre- 
tended friends. 

The world is full of this and some of the frauds practiced on gullible 
humanity are infamous, humiliating, outrageous, but still it goes on. So 
long as suckers breed, they must be fed, and we nourish vampires, think- 
ing them angels; we cultivate social outlaws of both sexes, because we 
believe them good and true and pure. We have been imposed upon, and 
those engaged in the imposition are profes.sed christians, sometimes, and 
so our faith is shaken in all mankind. 

But there are good, honest, true men and women in this world, and 



58 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

many Of them. People whose acquaintance is a credit ;.nH ^ :■ 



LEACHES. 

There are many other kinds of leaches in this world besides those the 
physician puts under your black eyes to suck away the blood. There 
are leaches in human form, who cling to you like the natural blood- 
suckers, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof. 

There are people all around you who are shiftless and lazy; people 
who will not do any manner of work in support of themselves. They 
are related to you, perhaps, in some manner, and you carry them from 
day to day and year to year. 

Some of these leaches dress well, they hang around the hotels and bar 
rooms; they pick their teeth and clean away therefrom the food that has 
cost you money. Some of them keep loaded half the time on your 
money, and they dwell on the fact that some of their relations, fifty or 
more years ago were senators or other public, prominent men. 

Every city in this land has its full quota of leaches — living of? the in- 
dustry of others. You know, and so do we, men who are existing year 
by year on the energy of their wives and children. These men never 
work, never have, never will. They are lost to shame, and the only morti- 
fication that exists is with the mortified faculties of these lazy, worthless 
men. 

There are leaches among the cultivated people who wear the finest of 
clothes, and whose persons are adorned with rich jewelry, who live from 
hand to mouth. They still cling to the old and past, when their circum- 
stances were different, and when they could afiford these luxuries — poor 
but proud in their poverty. 

There are leaches among the sports in all communities, and they hang 
round the saloons, waiting for the half-full decent man to come in and 
set 'em up, and they flock about the new-comer like flies at the bung-hole 
of a syrup barrel, and there they stand, all day and half the night, watch- 
ing and waiting for the man who is to ask them up to drink. 

There are leaches in the club and church, who always manage to get 
the best of everything, without cost to themselves. When pressed for 
a donation to some worthy object or person, they borrow the money of 
a friend and never repay the loan. These are the genteel-shoddy, whom 
you always have with you, and everywhere. 

There are leaches among the employes of the store and factory, who 
always share the good things of their associates, but always escape pay- 



40 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

ment of their proportion of cost. There are leaches everywhere, built 
just like decent people, and you can only distinguish them by contrast, 
by experience. 

We had a visitor once from the East, and when it came time to return 
home, the money to buy the passage ticket was borrowed from us. That 
was twenty years ago, and the money has never been repaid. Leach. 

We once advanced the money to pay the fine of a man to keep him 
from going to jail, and while that man was grateful with his jaw, he has 
never repaid us that money. Leach. 

A once comfortably situated family became poor some years ago, and 
we advanced the money to grub-stake them, and, although what is left 
of that family are now in good circumstances, they have never oflEered to 
reimburse us. Leaches. 

What has been our experience has been yours, everybody's, and it al- 
ways will be so. There is no use of any attempt at reform in this regard, 
for, when the Almighty brands a man or a woman a leach, that settles it; 
leaches they are, and will be, as long as they encumber the earth. 

There are leaches, as well, among apparently respectable people, as 
among the fraternity of dead beats; and every day they are spending 
money on themselves that ought to be applied to paying old debts. Peo- 
ple have no business to insult their creditors by elegant dressing and re- 
ceptions, but rather should make an endeavor to pay their debts by an 
honorable economy. There are leaches who are patiently waiting for 
the outlawing of their debts, and yet are, every year squandering more 
than enough money to square themselves with the world. 

It's the endeavor to be honest that gives the creditor faith; it's the 
honesty of purpose and intention, that gives a man credit among his fel- 
lows; it's the hard work, the industry of men that tells of his good inten- 
tions; with these he receives the encouragement of those to whom he is 
indebted. But to see great, strong, healthy men sitting around on their 
front porches at home, making no endeavor to get square with the world, 
is where you apply the term of which we spout to-day — leaches. 



WE ARE ALL HEADED ONE WAY, 

This world of ours is made up of many curious things and many queer 
and curious people; and, while we are all quite alike, and all things much 
the same, yet each and every matter of life is separate and distinct in 
itself. 

The aims and ambitions of all humanity is to succeed and prosper, es- 
pecially financially, in this life. Many of us have a choice as to how we 
accumulate riches, but we regret, exceedingly, to say, that there are very 
many, also, who are not over-scrupulous as to the means and methods 
employed to acquire wealth. Beyond this matter of getting money lies 
a knowledge of the fact that each and every moment, hour and day, we 
are all slowly, but surely, drifting toward the end. 

Day by day we see our friends falling all around us. Some are tum- 
bled into eternity with life half done, and its affairs half wound up; some 
are toppled over by old age — the machine has worn out; some take life 
and death into their own hands and end an existence that has proved a 
burden to them; some are worn and weary with struggle, and make a 
pillow of their burdens and plunge over the bank; some still cling to 
hope, and are manfully battling with adversities, with disaster, with hu- 
miliation, with disgrace, and, covering their eyes, they plow along, hoping 
at last to meet that promised reward. We are all headed one way. 

Life is full of harrowing, distressing scenes and incidents ; it overflows 
with tortures and discouragements; its allurements are various and many; 
its vicissitudes numberless; its disappointments are without end. One 
life is full of sunshine, another with gloom; one life is full of hope, an- 
other with despair; one life is bright and beautiful, another cloudy and 
hideous. i 

The real trouble with the people of this world is that they are improp- 
erly educated by those whom they employ to teach them. Orthodox 
clergymen will preach the Ten Commandments and ask you to implicitly 
believe everything contained in the Bible, regardless of sense, justice, 
humanity or reason; and yet, the Evangelist can point you to wrecks 
lying all around this world, who have always led blameless lives. We 
can show you men and women who have followed the teachings of holy 
writ all their lives, who are limping around on crutches and looking out 
of one eye. People whose hearts are heavy with sorrow; people whose 
estates have been wrecked by profligate sons and sons-in-law; people 



42 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

who are even now on their knees, praying for children disgraced. We 
know scores of them — good, pure, pious people, who have led the most 
righteous lives, and are to-day hobbling along after a faith that has 
knocked them in the head already a hundred times. One man feels that 
course to be the only correct one, and another feels the reverse ; one man 
believes one thing, another something else; and yet, notwithstanding, 
we are all headed one way. 

If there is another life, we all want it, and we all will do our level best to 
secure it. There may be one, there may be a dozen, there may be none; 
no one knows ; but to be sure about it, let each of us follow the dictates of 
our own hearts, and we will not be far from right when the end comes. As 
we have often said before, this life we l^now all about; the other nothing; 
and so, all we, as a true teacher and preacher, can do, is to plead with 
our large congregation to do as near right as their abilities and capacities 
will allow them, and take their chances with the rest of us, for that which 
is said to be in store for us hereafter. We are all headed one way. 

There are scores of people in this very city who go to church and pray, 
and are called pious, and who say they are "going to heaven when they 
die." Well, all we have got to say is, that if some of them do reach 
that harbor of rest for the good, we shall ask our old friend, the devil, 
to pull the string and let us in where he reigns supreme. 

Bald-headed christians who have settled for ten cents on the dollar, are 
fooling themselves like thunder if they think for one moment that they 
will get a crown in glory. Fanatics who have bred trouble in society, 
in families, in neighborhoods, will come out the little end of the horn 
when eternity's roll is called. Ministers who have meddled in politics; 
those who have dabbled in scandal ; cranks who have destroyed the peace 
of mind of their fellow-men, will find their names on the wrong list when 
the judgment day comes 'round. 

Study to benefit humanity here, now, in this life; never mind the other 
one. Clothe the naked; feed the hungry; lift up those who have fallen; 
encourage the weak; pour your vials of oil over those whose hearts 
are wounded; pity the bum and look after his family; relieve distress 
wherever you find it, and that, too, before asking if the poor victim be- 
longs to the church. There are scores of breaking hearts near you to- 
night; try, and you can do great good in lightening some of them. There 
is much sadness near where you sit to-day; see if you cannot soften the 
sorrow a little. There is humiliation and disgrace, wretchedness and 
woe; there are those who are weaiy and heavy laden; give them a lift 
with the loads they carry; speak kindly, tenderly to those who are tor- 
mented and perplexed. Live a pure, good life, my friends, and we will 
bet all we can scrape together that you, and all who do as we have taught, 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 4» 

will receive all the glories and benefits of whetever reward there is for the 
good deeds done in the flesh. 



SCRAPS. 

The human life is entirely made up of scraps. It's a sort of crazy quilt, 
made out c)f many i)arts, each part not of nuich account by itself, but 
added to the rest, makes soiuclhing useful, something pleasing to look 
upon, to think about. 

And how very nnich alike is one life with another. Beginning with 
babyhood and going along through life in all its various stages, how very 
similar is one life with that of another! 

There may be a fate, a fortune that steers some lives to marked suc- 
cesses and others to utter failure. We know that some succeed while 
others fail. 

It is genius, it is luck, it is accident, that leads some of us just where 
we want to go, and others in an entirely different direction. What is it 
that makes the poor rich and the rich jioor? Why is it that a poor man 
is blessed with half a dozen children and the rich man has none? Why 
does accident always befall some poor devil who cannot afford to pay the 
doctor bills, and those rich who can, escape? Scraps. 

The lives each of us lead is made up of scraps — a little here and there. 
No matter who we are, nor what position we occupy in this life, we are 
all floating along life's river together, and our make-up is the same. 

The occupations of men and wcMucn are as curious as they are numer- 
ous. Each of us has, or should have, something to do. We choose our 
life's profession and follow it, and what suits one does not suit another. 

The editor looks at the preacher and wonders how the devil he can 
preach such stuff; how he can, year after year, spring his mouldy chest- 
nuts on his peo]">le for ]->ay; and the preacher looks with pity upon the 
editor, and wonders how he can be so luig'odly. Scraps. Sixty millions 
of people, and all of them doing something each anil every day! Some 
of these people are engaged in noble pursuits, and their lives are a credit 
to them, while others are following degrading callings, and are a discredit 
to those engaged in them. Scraps. 

The professional man, the merchant, the inventor, occupy one position 
and the racer of horses and the fighter of chickens and dogs, another; 
but they arc all busy at their respective trades. How skillfully does the 
doctor saw ofT your arm or leg, and just as skillfully does the con. man 
beat you out of your possessions — each understands his business. Scraps. 

The professional evangelist, going from town to town, exhorting the 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 45 

people to flee from the wrath to come, is no more in earnest than the 
fakir with his scheme, and each is working his business for all there is in 
it. Scraps. 

The educated and scientific man associates, mingles with educated and 
scientific people, and the brute and bully is found with his kind. The 
good and pure are with others who are so constructed, and the burglar 
and thief flock with those of their sort. Each knows whore to find the 
other, and you will always find each class together. Scraps. 

We are all going up and down in life's scale every day. Those at the 
bottom are struggling to reach the top, and those on top are struggling 
to prevent a fall to the bottom. Scraps. 

This world is made up of all sorts of people — the good, the bad, the 
indififerent; and each is making the best use of time to further the inter- 
ests of his own desires. The good, as a rule, are growing better, and the 
bad growing worse, and we are all traveling a road that is built of 
scraps. 

A human being does not amount to much on this earth, anyway. He 
is here for a time, then gone and is never missed. His place is soon 
filled by some one else, and he goes through the same performance. 
Scraps. 

One lot of men are digging away in the bowels of the earth for coal, and 
another lot on top of the ground are burning it up. One lot of men are 
building houses, another set tearing them down. One lot are manufac- 
turing whisky, another set trying to prohibit its being made. One lot 
are rabid church people, and excessively pious, and another set are di- 
rectly opposite. One lot creates, another destroys; and so it is with this 
entire life. It is made up of scraps. 

If people only could realize it, they would see how idiotic, how foolish 
it is to quarrel, to gossip, to slander. But the Creator put these several 
qualities into people, and they must come out. A scandalmonger is so 
created. This is not something that can be acquired; it is natural. The 
slanderer is natural born, and all of these come from the ignorant. A 
woman may wear silks and satins and fine plumes, and still be a fool. A 
man may wear broadcloth, and rings on his fingers and still be an idiot. 
Scraps. 

And so is this world made up with the good and bad, the pure and im- 
pure, the educated and the illiterate, the saint and the sinner, the sober 
and the drunken, the honest and dishonest, rich and poor, sick and well^ 
whole people and those who are deformed, the truthful and the liar, the 
genuine and the counterfeit of these several materials is what the whole 
people are made of — scraps. 



HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED THAT? 



Close observers of this world, its people and its affairs, arc mystified at 
the many peculiar things they see scattered all through this life. There 
is so much that is queer, strange, mysterious, that it bewilders us some- 
times and renders our life burdensome, because of the many things we 
cannot explain. 

We see a good, conscientious man, striving in every way to succeed 
in life. He is out of his bed early in the mornmg and he labors hard, far 
into the night. He is sober and industrious; he has no bad habits; he 
is gentle in his manner and kind in disposition ; he is popular with all the 
boys and yet he fails in everything he undertakes. Have you ever no- 
ticed that? 

When a man is seriously wounded in a railroad wreck, or falls through 
a hatchway, or tumbles off a ladder and breaks his bones, he is always 
one who is the sole support of a widowed mother and fatherless brothers 
and sisters. Have you ever noticed that? 

When a cyclone comes; when fire sweeps through a village or city; 
when local or general calamities come upon a people anywhere, its fullest 
force will be felt by those the least able to stand the loss. Have you ever 
noticed that? 

The most enterprising men of any community — men who invest their 
means in fostering public measures; in increasing public prosperity; in 
developing local resources; in advancing the best interests of a city, are 
the very ones who go all to pieces after awhile and die in poverty, in ob- 
scurity and in humiliation. Have you ever noticed that? 

Day by day men plan and scheme; they have ideas which they produce 
in tangible shape only to fall by the wayside, weary and worn out, to lie 
there helpless and see their pet devices developed and perfected by some 
one else. Have you ever noticed that? Men with shoulders that are 
bent, and hair that is white, stand idly by and behold their thoughts and 
ideas making other men who have no brains, rich. They see the lands 
they once owned, in possession of some one else ; they see their buildings 
the property of others, while they themselves are troubled in spirit over 
the problem of their next meal. Have you ever noticed that? 

Senators and governors and generals, men whose fame once filled this 
land, men, the mention of whose names was the signal for universal en- 
thusiasm ; men who played a brave part in the real play of life ; men whose 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 47 

authority was absolute, whose commands and requests were law, have 
slipped from their high positions into places way down in the human 
scale and have become only ordinary among the general herd. Have you 
ever noticed that? 

Accidents have made men famous; calamities have developed riches; 
pains and punishments have changed men's lives and characters. Afflic- 
tions have softened hard hearts and hardened hearts that were once as 
tender as a woman's. Circumstances have changed good men to bad 
ones, and bad to good. Have you ever noti'^ed that? Generous, liberal, 
open-hearted and open-handed men and women have lost their wealth and 
the power it gave them for doing good, while the stingy human hog, rises 
higher and higher in public esteem. Have you ever noticed that? 

Men, who have piled up brick and mortar in our cities ; men who were 
commercial kings; men who were always at the head and front of all 
public enterprises, have been crowded out and their places filled by little, 
trifling creatures, with wee, small souls, who only lack bristles on their 
necks to make them hogs, and this is true as well of one locality as an- 
other. Have you ever noticed that? 

Intelligent men, kind-hearted, affectionate men; men who are indus- 
trious and economical; men whose sympathies are keen and whose love 
for humanity is great, are ridiculed and burlesqued by a gang of ignorant 
but lucky creatures, who have prospered in some mysterious way. Have 
you ever noticed that? Liars and hypocrites and frauds, and those who 
are irresponsible and dishonest, meet success at every turn of fortune's 
wheel, while the truthful, the true and the reliable, encounter misfortune 
and disaster at every turn. Have you ever noticed that? The saint is 
punished, while the sinner thrives; the bad are prosperous, while the good 
are unsuccessful; ignorance is rewarded, while cultivation is pushed one 
side; the licentious are elevated, while the virtuous are cast down; the 
meek and lowly follower loses his possessions, while the thug and the 
bum flourish like a green bay tree; men of massive intellects are depend- 
ent on the cold charities of a cruel world, while the idiot and the fool live 
in grandeur and rule the roost. Have you ever noticed that? 



GET THERE. 

If the people of this big, bright world should stop to kick out of their 
pathway every banana peel that falls; if they should roll away every ob- 
struction; if they should sit in the comer and mourn and worry over 
things they cannot avoid ; if they should whine every time an enemy lit 
into them; if they should grow light-headed and faint-hearted over every 
reverse; if they should sit idly around, waiting for that "something" to 
turn up, the moss and mold would grow over and about them and these 
people would be buried from sight. 

There is no life that is wholly free from care, responsibility, annoyance 
and trouble; there never was, never will be; and yet, the average of man- 
kind "pulls through" somehow or other. Once in awhile we find some 
weak-minded brother who falls under his heavy load and shoots a bullet 
into himself or hangs himself to a rafter in his barn. Now and then we 
find some frail sister who is afflicted beyond her power to endure, and 
she hops into the river and eternity. But the mass, the majority of all 
mankind, nerve themselves to carry their load, no matter how heavy, how 
humiliating, how degrading, how severe. 

There is scarcely a day in the week but that all mankind bumps up 
against some trial; but that something occurs to perplex them; either 
about their homes, their children, their business or their social affairs. 
It would prove too difficult a task to enumerate these troubles and trials, 
and so we leave each and every one of our congregation to his or her 
own. 

The great Creator of us all, fashioned us differently. There are no two 
of us alike. We neither act nor think alike; our modes, methods, habits 
are not alike; our customs, our ideas, ovir impressions, our fancies, our 
desires, our pleasures are wholly unlike ; and so, it is not remarkable that 
we should differ; that we should quarrel; that we should laugh and weep 
and rejoice and worry over the funny and serious affairs of the life we 
live. 

We believe that people are born just what they are, and the deviltry 
of the child means the villainy of the man. We are led to believe that 
people become vicious and corrupt and bad, by their associations, but we 
do not believe it. We believe that every bad man and woman has badness 
in their blood, and that they as naturally drift toward corruption as the 
water of a river flows oceanwards. We do believe, however, that with 



MIOnrPATlONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 49 

proper care, a i)roper j^^uard of children, naturally inclined toward evil, 
can be restrained, and possibly saved at last, and we therefore believe in 
exerting- ourselves in this direction. We think that children properly 
and carefully reared, will never entirely forget their early training, no 
matter how depraved they may become in their after lives; and so we 
would impress upon every parent the absolute necessity of making their 
children see and understand that they must not allow themselves to be- 
come discouraged at every ill wind that may blow across their path. Tell 
them that the world is big, and broad, and lOng, and that they stand an 
equal show with the rest of ''getting there," if they apply themselves. 

It's humiliating to be poor, and yet our richest men to-day were once 
pinched by poverty. Their opportunities were no better than yours. 
They educated themselves; they clothed and fed themselves, and all this 
time were laying the foundation of their wealth. They were obstinate 
and determined and "got there." 

Each and every young man and woman of to-day, who is struggling 
for their mere living, may as well be free and independent in their later 
lives as any who have preceded them. The roads are no rougher now 
than when the successful men trudged over them, laboring with their 
heavy burdens. The clouds are no darker to the young man and woman 
of to-day, than they were years and years ago, when your fathers and 
mothers started on their journey of life together, and they "got there." 

The trials and torments and worries and perplexities of those who 
have been successful were no more severe than are yours to-day. The 
anxieties, the responsibilities, the cares, were as numerous and varied in 
those earlier days as now, and yet, see how honest toil and faithfulness 
has been rewarded — these earlier ones "got there." 

The Evangelist was "picked at," and lied about, and belittled, and 
snubbed, from the first day he left a broken home to seek a fortune for 
himself in the West. We have bumped u]) against all the calamities in 
this calendar; we have been badly advised; been the victim of selfish, 
disreputable and dishonest people ; we have had shocks ; we have encoun- 
tered every storm of life, and have been washed by treacherous waves, 
while clinging to a forlorn hope; we have builded our castles in the air 
and have seen them disappear; we have been deceived by life's mirage, 
and gone far out of our way, chasing the unreal ; we have laughed and 
wept; we have clung to hope desperately; we have danced and paid the 
fiddler his price; we have used red paint, and it has taken years to re- 
move its stains from our soiled garments; we have been tossed about in 
the ocean of life, and our frail boat seemed almost ready to sink; but it 
didn't; and, my friends, during all these varied experiences, we have 
never lost our determination to "get there." 



50 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

Our life, young man, is only what you may expect yours to be. You 
will encounter the same violence; you will rub against the same peo- 
ple who will ridicule your subordinate positions and make fun of your 
carefully studied projects; you will be discouraged by those you thought 
your friends; you will receive bad advice; you will be the victor once, 
and the next trip the victim; you will have your joys and sorrows; your 
fun and your moments of serious thought; you will find tliat same old 
man with his huge boot to kick you out in the same old way, if you tarry 
too long with his favorite daughter at the gate; you will find that same 
old woman, who will pick up your highly perfumed notes with the tongs; 
you will find the same old sister ready with the same old story of your 
poverty and dissolute habits, and your general unfitness for anything that 
is exalting and pure and good; the same spies will dog your footsteps 
by day and by night, ready and anxious to report your evils and suppress 
your virtues; you will encounter the same rough edges, the same diffi- 
culties, the same obstacles, the same oppositions; but, my young and 
earnest, struggling friend, stiffen your neck, harden your heart, push 
ahead regardless, and if you heed not the treachery and baseness of the 
human family, your name is Eli, and you willtzet There. 



BIRDS OF A FEATHER. 



Have you, clear people, ever paid any attention to the subject of our 
Sermon to-day, "Birds of a Feather?" If not, from now on do so, and 
you will see how very true it is that birds of a feather do flock tog-ether. 

You may go anywhere and you will see men of the same tastes and 
dispositions, the same customs, manners and habits, the same instincts, 
all friendly with one another. Mean and stingy men flock together; 
wicked and vicious men all flock together; corrupt and licentious men 
flock together. They gather at common resorts and together they 
discuss the interesting features of the day — interesting to them, but to 
no one else. They are well posted regarding all the things they wish to 
sneak away from, and they are never caught. 

The loafer knows every resort where the free lunch is served, and he 
and his kind are there to fill up on the soup, but to spend no money with 
the house. The masher knows all the girls who can be flirted with in 
safety, and he compares notes with his fellows, and they all flock together, 
because they are of the same feather. 

There is in every community certain cliques, certain people who are 
sorted out as one would sort an article of trade. The one may be de- 
pended on to assist in any and all things that are suggested for the public 
good ; the other is known as a hog, and will do nothing to assist anything 
or anybody that is good. 

Every community contains people who are recognized as the leading, 
moving spirits of that community, and also another class who are known 
as obstructionists — who are always on the wrong side; always pulling the 
wrong way; you will find everywhere great, big-hearted people, who 
make thqse around them happy by their own cheerfulness, and at the turn 
of the wheel, you find the cold and selfish human beast, with no sympathy, 
no love, no thought for any but themselves. 

This world, though, could not "go," were it not for the fact that all 
sorts, all kinds of people were turned loose in it. We are mingling to- 
gether every day — each feather, each kind, flocking together; and yet, 
unfamiliar with each other. None of us know the secrets of the other, 
and yet we flock together, each kind by itself. 

There is something in nature that seems to provide for the lacks, the 
wants of others, and so are we all provided for. Floating around in so- 
ciety to-day, here and there and everywhere, are men and women who 



52 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

ought to be in jail or under the sod. Murderers, forgers, seducers, sail- 
ing in your midst under false colors. Men who have committed the 
foulest, the vilest of crimes, are to-day walking in respectable circles 
among respectable people; but among the crowd is one who knows that 
the bird has strayed from his kind and is not where it should be. 

We know a man who is in a prominent trade to-day and hundreds of 
our readers have bought goods from him, who, a few years ago, killed a 
man in a little city hard by. He was arrested and tried and acquitted, 
but our readers could never imagine who it is; and yet he butchered a 
fellow-being a few years ago. You mingle with such people every day, 
but do not know their history. 

Go with us to any hotel, any public place, here at home or anywhere 
else, and you will see birds of a feather flocking together. They sit at 
the same table; they hug the same post in front of the hotel; they tell 
and laugh at the same sort of a story ; they belong to the same lodge and 
are the same in every way, brains and habits and character. 

A few years ago, some of these airy fools were being educated and 
fed by the mission schools of the church. They were absolutely sup- 
ported by the christian charity of the church to which their parents be- 
longed, and see how natural it is for them to flock with their kind. 

Money may give people position; it may give them place and power, 
but it cannot give them brains; it cannot give them intellect; and not- 
withstanding the fact that their rooms are handsomely furnished; that 
they board at the leading hotels, you will notice that they are not social 
favorites. Cultured society does not crave their presence; intellectual 
circles has no use for them. They are looking and seeking to flock with 
their own kind. They are birds that are looking after other birds of 
their own feather. 

Now and then men and women stray away from themselves and get 
into other flocks , but nature comes to the rescue and they are discovered 
and driven out and back into the flock from whence they came — into the 
flock whose part and parcel they are, and so it is that, go where you may, 
you will always find, that the subject of our Sermon is true, and that 
"birds of a feather do flock together." 



ONE WAY AND ANOTHER. 



The study of life, in its various shapes, is a most interesting one to those 
who are observers, and if people would more generally study life as ex- 
ampled by the human family, it would greatly improve the race; it would 
make us all more sympathetic, more kind, more forgiving. It would 
teach us that things are not what they seem, by a very large majority. 
It would let us into the inner lives of people; it would reveal to us their 
sorrows, their pains, their frailties. It would show us good reasons for 
many of the queer and peculiar performances of the people. It would 
teach us to apologize for the acts and deeds of men and women. It 
would reveal to us full explanations for the methods and bearings of the 
great human family. But where one person studies life and its repre- 
sentatives, ten thousand pay no attention to it. 

The great masses of people are on the lookout all the while only for 
themselves. They care nothing for the successes or the failures of other 
men and women. They are only interested in themselves, and so we are 
a great nation of selfish mortals, tumbling through the world each on 
the alert for himself, for herself. 

There are in this life as many peculiarities, as many characteristics, as 
many methods, modes and dispositions as there are people, and so it is 
not strange that we are disagreeing, quan-eling and at continual war with 
each other all the while. It is not at all strange that we have enemies ; 
that we envy and are jealous. It is not to us strange that cranks are 
multiplying every year and hypocrites are becoming more and more nu- 
merous; and, until people learn to put up with insolence, with slights, 
with the malice of his neighbors and acquaintances, we shall always dis- 
agree and be in trouble. 

The professed christian is not always what he pretends to be, and he 
or she has vices within themselves that are more numerous and hurtful 
than in others whom they condemn so severely. The churchman looks 
with horror upon the profession who earn their living on the stage, and 
yet upon the boards you can find people who outrank many of those who 
are assailing them. We know wee little tots, five, seven and ten years of 
age, who are earning a living for their fathers and mothers and the whole 
family. Little innocent girls and boys, who know no wrong, who are 
supporting disabled fathers handsomely by their cute performances on 
the stage, and yet the whole church is making war on even these little 



54 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

ones because of their ways of life; but we cannot all think and act one 
way, and there is the difference. 

Gamblers live by that profession. They make no secret of it, and there 
is just the same space allotted to them on this earth as to the most gifted 
anion"- the clergy. The world is full of people who make their living 
racing horses — they do nothing else. They simply go from one race 
track to another, betting, winning and losing their money, and these peo- 
ple have got just as much right to be on earth as any other man, and 
yet thousands disapprove of their ways of life. 

Pleasure gardens run all day Sunday and great crowds of people pat- 
ronize them, enjoy themselves and harm no one, and yet other thousands 
vehemently condemn all of these pleasures ; but we cannot help it. Each 
faction has the right to be, to do, to act, to think as best pleases his fam- 
ily and the rest ought in no way to interfere. 

Thousands of men and millions of dollars are employed each and every 
year, in the manufacture and sale of beer and whisky. Thousands of peo- 
ple drink it after it is made and feel secure and satisfied, while other 
thousands of rabid prohibitionists are using their every endeavor to 
piievent the manufacture, sale and use of both malt and spirits. Both 
classes believe their way to be the best, and each is doing their level best 
to maintain their side of the question, and each fighting the other all the 
while. 

Clubs are maintained all over the country, where the membership 
gather and suck their toddy and play cards, and in this way enjoy them- 
selves, while on the outside are other people who condemn the club and 
the members in measured terms. 

One firm prints bibles and testaments, while another grinds out playing 
cards. One firm prints tracts, another makes dice boxes. One firm 
makes priestly robes, another builds clothes for actors. One firm makes 
the service for the communion table, another makes the furnishings for 
bar rooms. One firm builds costly altars for our elegant cathedrals, 
another the furniture for our saloons; and so we find everything all the 
while. We are all busy one way and another. 



SPENDING AN EVENING. 



There are many and various ways of doing that of which we preach 
this day, and, no doubt, it was so ordained to accommodate the many 
and various inchnations and tastes of this world's people. Spending an 
evening is just what we make it. We can spend an evening pleasantly, 
or we can make it one of torment; but to spend one pleasantly we must 
cater to the tastes of those whom we would please. 

If a man could do at his neighbor's home exactly what he would do 
if he was at home, many a pleasant evening could be spent — neighbor 
with neighbor, friend with friend. But the trouble is that when one man 
makes a social, evening call upon another, he is called upon to do so en- 
tirely different from what he would do if he were at home, that the "pleas- 
ant evening" becomes a bore and a nuisance, and we do not "hanker" 
after many of them. 

Suppose, for an example, that a man smokes his cigar at home, if he 
could do this in his neighbor's home he would be glad to avail himself 
frequently of a pleasant evening with his friends and neighbors; but, un- 
fortunately, his friends are not smokers — not "onto" your desires, and the 
result is that you sit through the entire evening waiting only for the 
hour to arrive when you can "get out of there" and light your cigar. 
What "might have been" a pleasant evening was a bore — a patience tester 
— an infernal nuisance, and you will be very careful not to get into such 
a trap again. Well, this is one picture. Another is the home that is 
managed by a fault-finding, petulent, scolding wife. Everything goes 
wrong; nothing is just right, and one fault after another is found, until 
the husband wearies of it, and so you will find him at the club, or sitting 
with his feet on the bar-room radiator, listening to the jokes and fun of 
the loungers there. As we write this Sermon, we see sixteen of this 
world's people. They pre of various ages, from the youth to the ma-i 
with gray hair and what are they doing? Let us see. There are three 
tables — four men at each table playing "high five" — that's twelve, three 
playing pool and one sits by the stove reading a paper — that's sixteen full 
grown, able-bodied, healthy, strong men "spending the evening," Ah 



56 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

here comes four more men — ^they walk up to the bar, and, what is this we 
see — a bottle, so it is, a long, slim bottle with something brown in it and 
one man fills a small glass and the other four "take beer." They are, these 
four, spending an evening and we look at them and wonder if they do this 
because they have no other way of spending an evening, or because their 
homes are unhappy, or because they prefer this way to any other. As we 
sit and write this sermon, we look at these twenty people and speculate 
as to what prompts them to do what we see them doing and then we look 
back home to the little ones saying their prayers and wish we were there 
to hear them. 

We see life in all its various shapes. We see people of all sorts and 
kinds and the more we see the more confused we become, wondering 
at the hows and whys of life. We wonder why intelligent men can asso- 
ciate with the low and brutal ; why the head and front of a family can con- 
tent himself with high five, while sweet little children are kneeling in their 
cribs, saying the "now I lay me down to sleep," but, boys, there are more 
ways than one of spending an evening. 



HANG ON. 



We believe, that traveling as we do so many miles each month, and 
mingling as we do with so many people, that we see more of the inner 
lives of the human family, than others who remain at home. We see 
sights and hear tales that mean sorrow, suffering, trials and tribulations to 
hundreds. We see those who are discouraged, those weighed down with 
their heavy burdens; those who are discouraged at their ill fortunes; those 
who have lost their nerve — their grip and those who feel that life has no 
charm for them, but our advice to them all is — hang on. 

As we have often said, there are times when it seems that all is lost; 
that it is idle, useless to struggle further to keep up with the procession; 
that everything seems dark and forbidding — ^times when you are so blue ; 
when your friends even seem careless and when you feel it in your bones, 
that you had not one, in the face of this big globe — not one to whom you 
could turn in your discouragements, but hang on. 

Everything you undertake fails you. Others are successful but you 
are not; others clean up a profit each and every year but you get deeper 
and deeper in the hole, every time the three hundred and sixty-five days 
roll round. You cannot tell where the fault lies. You try just as hard 
as you ever did, just as hard as others do — but things continue to go 
wrong. Everything you touch turns upside down ; your speculations fail ; 
you are on the losing side of every game. You drop your stufif in any 
measure you calculated would prove to your advantage. But, my be- 
loved, hang on. 

It is indeed a long lane that has no turn. By and by your time will 
come and those who are rejoicing at your ill luck will themselves be bat- 
tling with adversity. Those who are now on top will be at the bottom. 
Those who are climbing life's hill rapidly will come tumbling down by 
and by and you will meet them coming down as you are going up. Hang 
on. 

You can see examples every day — all around you in proof of this. You 
know people who a few years ago, rode in carriages who are walking 
to-day. You know people who once had piles of boodle, who would 
to-day consider themselves rich if they had in their pants the price of a 
drink. People have been known to blow out their brains because they 
had fallen from lofty places — fallen from the rich and influential to the 
ordinary mortal, without power or influence; without one redeeming 



58 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

feature left them to operate with, and the sti-ain is too much and so, in 
some lonely place they lie down to sleep. Such people though are 
cowards and ought to be severely condemned for shifting their burdens 
onto the shoulders of their wives and children; they should be con- 
demned for bringing disgrace upon their issue and yet they are to be 
pitied for their weakness. If we could have talked to these people with 
such heavy hearts, we should have advised them to hang on. 

If, when men are discouraged, they could bump up against some one — 
some good, true friend who would advise them. Some one to whom 
they could turn, unbosom themselves; some one to whom they could tell 
their troubles, it would, in many cases, relieve them, but unfortunately 
just at such a time, no one appears and another victim is numbered with 
the slain. 

But my beloved, there must be a change; there must come a time when 
you will receive a reward for your faithful endeavors. You cannot make 
us believe that the good are always to be tormented and the bad always 
rewarded. You cannot make us believe that the libertine and the scoun- 
drel will always succeed while the virtuous and the worthy are over-loaded 
with pains and penalties. You cannot make us believe that the rascal 
can always flourish while the honest among mankind are trodden under 
foot. We believe there will come a time, and that too, on this earth, when 
the pure and good, the honest, and industrious will be recognized and 
and prospered and the human beast driven to his corner, the contempt 
and the scorn of men. 

We believe that those guilty of crime wall be punished and the honest 
rewarded and we don't believe one will have to die either before receiving 
his reward or punishment. To those in torment now; to those in distress 
and trouble; to those in affliction and sorrow, to those blue and discour- 
aged, we have but one advice, one word, viz., hang on. It may come 
your way by and by — Hang on. 



ENEMIES OF SOCIETY. 

It is not always the men and women who wear the best clothes; who 
make the best appearance on the streets; who use the best language; who 
are the most entertaining, who make the best citizens, by a large majority. 
It is not the smooth and slick man and woman with a perpetual smile, 
who makes the best friend to tie to. It is not the plausible pleasant man 
who oils his hair and appears in immaculate linen who is the best among 
our people. It is not the genteel looking who are always genteel, nor is 
it the professedly pious who are sincerely so. We meet both men and 
women who look all right, who dress well, appear well, who speak well 
and yet are villains of the deepest dye and these are society's enemies. 

An enemy of society— the greatest enemy, is he who deceives you by 
his looks and manners. He or she is society's greatest enemy who pro- 
fesses what he or she is not. Society's greatest and most dangerous 
enemy is that man or woman who is sailing under false colors and we 
have them in every community. 

Everybody, everywhere has at times been grossly deceived in people. 
We have trusted them, confided in them, told them of our personal afifairs 
and they have violated the confidence we have reposed in them and used 
what we have confided to them for their own private ends. 

All of our readers before now have felt sorry for some poor unfortunate 
devil in trouble and you have extended your aid only to find how grossly 
you have been deceived. You have, ere this, recommended some man 
for a position — endorsed his application only to find out later that you 
have made the greatest mistake of your life in doing so. Men and women 
in the midst of their troubles have come to you and you have assisted 
them, only to be rewarded by their abusive tongues. Wc have, ourselves, 
before now, entertained people — given them the best we had in the house, 
only to hear, a few months later, that they had, even while our guests, lied 
to our neighbors about us. They were enjoying our hospitality and at 
the same time using what they heard and saw to our detriment. All of 
these are enemies of society. 

The wolf in sheeps clothing; the hypocrite; the deceiver; the humbug 



60 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

and the general fraud are all society's enemies. If you know men and 
women to be thieves and liars, you can watch them ; if you know them to 
be dead beats and swindlers, you can govern yourselves in accordance 
with your knowledge and the actions of such people and not be injured 
by them, but when you look upon a man or woman as your friend, when 
you impart to them your secrets; when you tell them of your private 
affairs and then, later on, ascertain that they have used this confidential 
information for purposes of gossip, then it is that you mistrust all men 
and womankind — and all those who do these things, are enemies of 
society. 

We never could, nor do we yet, understand why these social frauds and 
deceivers are tolerated; why these are permitted to wreck friendships; 
destroy homes; poison minds; pollute the social atmosphere, and yet they 
do every hour in the day and every day in the week. It seems to us that 
there should be a limit to the influence of these imposters but there seems 
none and every hour and day these creatures are plotting their mischief, 
to the despair and sorrow of us all. 

There is no punishment for these destroyers of human happiness and 
peace; we nuist endure the painful results of their venomous tongues and 
yet we cannot but regret that the world is so full of these human reptiles 
of which wc preach to-day — enemies of society. 



FATE. 

Do you believe in such a thing as fate? Wc do and you would if you 
could .£iivc the time and attention to life's affairs that they deserve. 

We are entirely unskcptical ; we have-4jiO fears, no superstitions, and yet 
we are a firm believer in fate. We believe that in this world there must 
be a victor and a victim, and believing this we know one person must un- 
willingly play the role of the victor and one the victim. 

We believe that one man is born lucky and the next unlucky. The 
hicky man wins and the unlucky one loses every time. We are a firm be- 
liever in fate. 

All of us make our daily plans; we scheme and arrange affairs and fate 
changes thcni all. We believe that the man or woman who acts con- 
scientiously ; who docs what he or she believes to be right, will, one day, 
sooner or later, get to the front, providing fate does not interfere. If it 
does, throw up the sponge. Money makes power and power makes 
place, but notwithstanding this we would nuich prefer to stand in with 
fate to secure for us a good honest name among our fellow men, than to 
enjoy the applause of the rabble on general principles and have fate 
against us. Fate. What is it? What is this fate that deludes and de- 
ceives so many of the human family every hour in the day. It is a hidden 
something that is to favor one and discommode another. Is it con- 
trolled by wisdom or is it merely a happening — the result of accident? Is 
it a fate that naturally follows mankind, or is it the i)lunge in the dark 
let the results be what they may. We may fight as much as we ])lease, 
but, all the same, there is a sort of a fatality that persues all mankind. We 
may struggle; we may endeavor, but, there is something that pushes us 
forward or backward and so we go from day to day — from mile to mile, 
as we journey on through life. 

The Evangelist is a firm believer in fate. We are of those who believe 
in that of which we preach. We believe that the honest among man and 
womankind will be j^crsccutcd and the vile among mankind honored by 
the people as a whole. 

But there is one sure principle. Be decent yourself and accept any fu- 
ture that comes. Some of us may endeavor as much as we please, but all 
our plans will prove unavailing and the harder we try the farther we get 
from the object of our endeavors. ' 



62 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

If we are in luck — stand in with fate, we may succeed without making 
scarcely any eflfort. If not, all our labor is lost. 

We know men and so do all who read these sermons, who are pure in 
body and mind, who are honest and their integrity has never been ques- 
tioned, who are to-day just where they were a quarter of a century ago. 
Nothing succeeds with them; everything they touch goes to pieces; every 
plan they make miscarries and always have. Why? Can any of our 
congregation tell? Again, you all know utterly corrupt men and women 
who prosper at every turn — who succeed in anything they undertake. 
While their bad morals are public property yet they are received by 
"society" and given a front seat, while the reputable man and woman — 
the honest and morally clean among man and womankind are crowded 
into life's dark corners, out of sight. 

Well, we cannot explain it, but our idea is that the mysterious some- 
thing of which we preach to-day, is at the bottom of it — Fate. 



EXAMPLE. 



My beloved did it ever occur to you that everybody is an example for 
some one else; did you ever stop to think that somebody was noting your 
every action, your every movement, your every speech and for the one 
jnn-pose of patterning after you. Did you ever pause one moment to 
think that some one was imitating you and saying that whatever you 
do they could, and be right? Did you ever think that every time you 
uttered a sentiment some one was laying it away to use themselves when 
occasion required? No, well, it is so and no matter how humble you may 
be ; no matter how lowly a place you may occupy in life's sphere, there is 
always somebody watching what you do and what you say, for the one 
purpose of imitating you — doing just as you have done, saying what you 
have said. 

This is plain; and how easy it would be if it were as easy to do right 
as it is to do wrong, but somehow or other the right is always difficult and 
the wrong so easy. You have children perhaps and those children 
naturally look to you for their exam])le. What they see you do, what 
they hear you say, they feel they can do and say and be perfectly right, so 
great is their confidence in you. Perhaps you are a young man, not yet 
started on life's journey far enough to have assumed the domestic rela- 
tions. Well, there is somewhere, somebody, younger than yourself who 
is noting your acts and speeches and doing precisely as you arc doing, 
and so the point of our remarks this day, is, be careful that you do not 
set anybody an example that is bad. 

The affairs of this world are not in all instances properly adjusted. It 
is very often the case that those who set a bad example arc often rewarded 
while the good are made the victims. 

We know men who arc kept in business positions who have neglected 
their families, abused their wives and children. We have seen and read 
letters from poor, forsaken, neglected wives, pleading for a little money to 
pay the board of herself and children, while the beast of a husband be- 
longed to clubs and was enjoying himself at public places, and kept in 
business position by men who ought to have kicked the beast into the 
street. 

We have known good, true honest men "let out" of their jobs to make 
room for some social outcast — some abusive hanger-on at disreputable 
joints and we have seen the world applaud a scoundrel while looking 



64 MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 

with compassion and pity upon the virtuous and the honest wife and child- 
loving man. 

It is awfully discouraging to a decent man to see people showing atten- 
tion to a social scoundrel and neglecting a virtuous and the reputable man, 
and yet this very thing is done every hour in the day and this very thing 
is what breeds so much corruption in the land. 

We see on our streets every day, men and women who are socially 
corrupt — men and women who are living in an open state of adultery — 
they make no secret of it but flaunt their vileness in the face of decency, 
and yet these corrupt people are respected and encouraged in their life's 
endeavors. They are shown the same attentions as the reputable and the 
virtuous among the people. The socially rotten men and women seem 
to be just as much thought of as those who endeavor to lead respectable 
and virtuous lives. What encouragement is there, therefore, for any one 
to be or try to be reputable, when those who are continually setting a bad 
example are the most thought of in the community. 

But, the mission of the Evangelist on this earth is to preach honor, 
virtue, respectability. We are to teach the truth ; endeavor to make men 
and women honest and truthful. We never yet have applauded a scoun- 
drel and we never shall, no matter how high he or she may stand in the 
social world. 

If a decent man is rich we honor him; if poor it is the same. If a bad 
man is rich we abhor and despise him regardless of the power of his 
wealth. We have but one object in our teachings and that is whatever 
comes, let your aim be set to everybody a good example. 



THE PROBLEM OF LIFE. 



Lunatic asylums and graveyards all over the civilized world, are filled 
to-day with those who have endeavored to solve the problem of life, and 
countless thousands are still among the living who will enter the valley 
of the shadow unenlightened. It is something no intellect, no matter how 
deep or broad or comprehensive, can fathom. It is something, nothing, 
which we do and do not understand, and whether the length of our living 
is long or short, we come in on the home-stretch blind. 

Millions have tried their level best to explain the problem of life, but 
have failed, and other millions will follow and imitate and go to their 
deaths with the thing misunderstood. Not even one among them all 
can tell you what it is or was, or is to be. 

The people of this world are living to-day; to-morrow they are dead. 
They are bright and cheerful one moment; the next depressed and sad. 
This week they are filled with encouragement and hope ; next they floun- 
der helpless in a sea of despair. This month their faces wear bright 
smiles; next we see frowns, and we trace in the cheeks deep furrows and 
agony of mind that wears away the frame. 

Twice each day, in every city and town, there arrives and departs the 
passenger trains filled with people. Some are going one way, some an- 
other; some are homeward bound filled with joy at pleasant anticipations, 
and some are bowed down with great grief. Some are flying, as fast as 
steam can carry them, to pleasant and delightful homes; others to desola- 
tion and ruin. Some will be met at the door with kisses and love; some 
with brooms and pokers and abusive tongues. Some home circles will be 
full and complete ; others broken and destroyed. Some hearts will over- 
flow with lightness; some sink in the heaviness of despair. 

Hotels will be crowded with busy men, hastily writing their orders to 
the firms they represent on the road. Busy proprietors of offices and 
stores will be hurrying their busy clerks to greater activity. Freight 
houses will be piled high with goods going east and west, north and 
south. Millions of money will be risked on things which will bring ad- 
ditional millions to those who invest. Steamboats crowded with people 
and merchandise are coming and going constantly over the waters. In- 
ventions will multiply each and every hour and great labor saved thereby. 
Men and women will wear old and shabby clothes in order to accumulate 
more gold. Wives and children will be half starved; we will risk our 



66 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

lives; annoy our debtors; assault the characters of our fellow men; pilfer 
their good names; rob the widows and orphans; join the church, and get 
hung — right along, day after day, trying to solve this problem of life, 
and yet at the end it is still unsolved. 

Now, how absurdly foolish is this daily wrestle with the mysterious — 
with the unexplained, the fathomless. How idiotic is the course you and 
all of us are pursuing — hunting up an explanation for this mysterious 
thing. The longest life is very short, and each day and week and month 
we see our friends tumbling over the bank, with their lives half lived; 
their plans half perfected; their schemes half developed. The grim 
monster is inhuman, remorseless, diabolical. He fastens his icy fingers 
on the old and young alike. The father, the mother, without regard to 
love or age or affection, is snatched away. The son or daughter, who is 
the only support of the family, is brought home with a broken limb or 
back. Virtue is pursued by poverty, while vice is rewarded with success. 
The meanest men and women are prospered and encouraged, while 
nature's noblemen rot and neglect. The embezzler of millions lives in a 
palace in Canada, while the poor unlucky devil, who nips a loaf of bread 
to save the lives of his babies, wastes away in a dungeon. We tip our 
hat to the bald-headed deacon, while he sands his sugar and beats his 
creditors out of seventy-five per cent by a rascally compromise, and yet 
each and all of us who live and move and have our being, are daily en- 
deavoring to solve the problem of life. 

Now, my beloved, there is something in this life that we can under- 
stand, let us therefore lay fast hold of that, and let the other slide. Crack 
the nut of life with your hammer of intelligence; get out the meat; it's 
sweet and good and pleasing to the taste. Now and then you will come 
across one that is bitter — one that the worm has dug into before you. 
Throw that away. Don't waste your time trying to discover how or why 
that destroying worm got into the kernel. Pick out another — smash it 
and eat the meat. There is not much to a single nut, but there are lots 
of them in the basket of life. You can easily fill yourself and be happy. 
You need not starve or become discouraged because you find a bad one 
now and then. Why the imps of darkness meddle with our affairs we 
cannot tell, but they do just the same, and it requires all the nerve we can 
command to thwart their fiendish designs. 

Be honest, manly, womanly, upright; be pure in act and deed. Stick 
to your friends and those who have stuck to you, and let the rest of the 
world go to the devil. Love your wives and babies and homes and see 
to it that the atmosphere there is honorable and pure, for the Evangelist 
will tell you right here and now, that he or she — the husband or wife — 
who is guilty of domestic dishonor; the man or woman who is responsible 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 67 

for a wrecked home or a broken human heart, will roast in hell if there is 
one, and they will be first to be cast into the hottest corner of eternal 
torment. 

Homes are destroyed every day and hearts are broken every hour. 
The world is full of human wrecks stumbling, staggering along over the 
rough surface of this restless, busy globe. Cursing men and tearful 
women jostle each other on crowded streets. Rivers of tears flow every 
day. It's the birth and the burial; hope and fear; joy and sorrow. It 
was thus in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, and yet not a single 
one among the millions will ever be able,"while living, to solve the Prob- 
lem of Life. 



STRUGGLE. 



With a struggle we enter this world; with a struggle we go along 
through it and with a final struggle we leave it. From our first hour 
on earth to our last, it is one constant, continual struggle. It is a strug- 
gle to get what we eat and drink and wear; a struggle to gel; a position 
in life which enables us to earn our living; a struggle to keep our po- 
sitions after we have gained them. It is a struggle to make and keep our 
friends; a struggle to control our appetites, our passions; a struggle to 
practice the teachings of the golden rule; a struggle to keep back our 
anger, our sentiments, our expressions. It is one constant struggle and 
worry to perform our allotted duties; a struggle to resist the numerous 
temptations that lie so thickly in our pathway; a struggle to lead just, 
correct and pure lives, amidst so much that is unjust, incorrect and im- 
pure. 

The infant in arms, twisted with colic, is in as much agony of body 
and mind, as the adult person, compared to their reason and years. The 
youth, sick at heart, at the "shake" his girl has given him, is as worried 
and sad and feels as forlorn and forsaken, as the man of maturer years 
is over the loss of his vast fortune. 

It is a life-long struggle for every one who lives. It will be a struggle 
for millions yet unborn, to fill their missions on this earth. No one has 
ever "got there" without a struggle, no one ever will. The little boy who 
once worked for the gas company had a fearful struggle with his poverty 
and lack of position, but now, with thousands of good hard English gold 
in his panties, he can see and feel that his struggles have not been in vain. 
All the great men in American history struggled for many years before 
they reached a place in life that insured them peace and plenty for their 
remaining years. 

Many a widow is struggling to-day with the fates that bind her to 
poverty and distress. She is numerous in this world and her sufferings 
and her struggles are hard to bear, but the children for whom she is 
struggling will be obliged to struggle for their babies, just as the poor 
widowed mother did for them. The struggle comes with each new life. 
The first faint peep of the baby as it is ushered into this big world, is the 
first signal that its struggles have begun and the rattle in the old man's 
throat tells that his struggles are at an end. 

Woe unto that man, that woman, who imagines that the end of one 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 69 

trJal, one struggle, is the end of all. Just as soon as one difficulty Is ar- 
ranged and provided for, another takes its place, and while some of our 
moments are full of joy and pleasantness and peace, so many more are 
filled with bitterness, that we scarcely can appreciate the pleasures of our 
checkered lives. 

It is a struggle for the banana peddler on the street corner to dispose 
of his fruit before it rots. It is a struggle for the merchant to sell his 
stock before his limit of credit expires. It is a struggle for the borrower 
to meet his notes as they fall due. It is a struggle to bear up under 
afiflictions and sorrows. It is a struggle to choose between life's necessi- 
ties when we can have but little at best. It is a struggle to earn money 
enough to meet the daily demands of ourselves and families. No matter 
who we are or where we live, whether in the tumult and confusion of a 
busy metropolis or in the quiet of a farmer's home, these matters of life, 
these worries and troubles, make us struggle to meet its demands upon 
us. 

The rugged frontiersman clearing away the timber upon land he pro- 
poses to farm, struggles day and night to accomplish his ends, and the 
city merchant, walks the floor long after the rest of the house is wrapped 
in slumber, struggling with his business thoughts. The victim of ex- 
cesses struggles with himself as none but himself know how, to down his 
one besetting sin. It is a struggle in politics, in religion, in business 
afifairs to reach a successful point. The student struggles to master his 
books for the one and only purpose of fitting himself for a prosperous 
and prominent future. The clergyman struggles with his congregation 
and week and month and year he preaches piety and morality to his flock. 
It discourages him when the growth of his church is slow, but he strug- 
gles on and on, just the same, hoping in the end to see the reward as the 
results of his earnest labors. The school teacher toils at home from an 
early morning hour and then plods her way to a distant school room 
where her sweet nature and amiable disposition is severely taxed by her 
struggles with the blockheads seated in a row before her desk. The 
struggle between striking employes and employers is fierce and bitter 
and revengeful, each doing their level best for supremacy. 

So is it with all of us; so it always was; so will it ever be. It is a strug- 
gle to get into the world, to get through, to get out. None of us escape; 
none ever have escaped, none ever will. There is "something on the 
old man's mind" and the young one's too. We may not know the strug- 
gles of either, but they have them just the same. As we have often said 
the smile on the face is no indication of an easy mind. We all struggle 
to live and our torments are as long as our lives, and when our weak, 
little eyes first see the light of this world and when the wrinkles on our 



70 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

faces tell us that the evcnin<^ of our life is come, we can then look back 
at the earliest recollection and what do we see, nothing' but one, pro- 
longed, form-withering, mind-warping, heart-breaking Struggle. 



WARTS. 

Did you ever have one on any of your several fingers; have you ever 
cui and burned and bled tlicm, or wra|)i)C(l about them a silk thread or 
done any of the thousand things to remove these pests from your hands'. 
If you have you know the humiliation, the annoyance, the pain attending 
their presence. If you have not you are in big luck. 

Well, my beloved, warts don't all grow on your fingers. .Some of them 
are well developed and walk about on two legs, see with two eyes, talk 
about you and your families with one tongue. They peer into private 
places and possess themselves of your secrets; they "hustle" oidy when 
gossiping about you; they dog your footsteps, noting carefully your 
every movement and spreading what they have seen or heard about you. 
There are warts of this sort and they cling to the sm-face of human life 
as do their brothers that grow upon your fingers. 

A wart is one who i)Ossesses friendship for you until you differ with him, 
then he shakes you; a wart is one who rejoices at your misfortunes; a 
wart is one who uses you for inunoral purposes; a wart is one who sneaks 
himself into your graces and then betrays you; a wart is one who assails 
virtue; a wart is one who works his employes half to death at starvation 
wages; a wart is a dogoned rascal and joins a church to better work his 
crookedness. 

A wart is he who hops on a man when he is down; a wart is he who 
plays poker until he loses, and then brings suit against the house for the 
money he has lost; a wart is he who drinks and smokes with you every 
time you ask him and then sneaks home when it comes his turn to treat; 
a wart is he who is always begging of you a chew of tobacco; a wart is 
he who has his name all over four sides of a saloon slate representing 
what he owes at the bar. 

Oh, no, warts don't all grow on the hand by a large majority — nor are 
they little knotty wounds. They eat and sleep and walk; they mingle 
with people who are whole and they spread themselves all over the earth. 

The great human wart on the body of life is more vastly to be dreaded 
than the little disorder on your finger. There is a remedy for the latter 
and time and care will heal it, but there is no cure for the former. It is 
nature's misfit and is on the earth to keep a place with others of its 
kind. It is not a new creation. There was a wart who sat at the last 
supper with the Lord several years ago. The rest of that group were 



72 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

real, true, faithful followers, but among them was one wart and he be- 
trayed his associates. Among the continental soldiery of our revolution 
was found one wart and they hung him. In the church and Sunday- 
school, you will always find one wart and it spreads all over the surround- 
ings of these sacred places. You will find him in our stores and offices; 
in the banks and counting rooms; on steamboats and on railroads; he is 
in the social circle and the singing school. You find him, very rarely 
however, editing a newspaper; he is a ringleader among cranks; he is 
found among the rich and among the poor; you will find him at lunch 
time, buying a five cent glass of beer and eating thirty cents worth of 
soup. Like the poor, you have him with you always — the wart. 

Such things arc requisite and necessary for a safe and satisfactory 
movement of this great big world of ours. The hypocrite and the swin- 
dler; the gossip-monger and the assaulter of character; the overbearing, 
tyrannical, cold-blooded money lender, who lives off his tax on poverty: 
the renegade and the reprobate; the chump; the sneak and the sub- 
sister on the fruits of shame; the dude who owes a bill at the bawdy house 
and the swell who owes his landlady are sample warts, and we bump 
up against them continually in our daily walks. 

The hanger-on at our sporting joints, the lusher and the hero of the 
green room are all warts. The wolf in sheep's clothing; the pious swin- 
dler, the fossil and the flunkey are warts. 

But there is one thing sure — time evens up all things and by and by 
we discover the true nature of these human warts and we take immediate 
steps to relieve ourselves of them. We "catch on" after awhile, and 
then we pour on the medicine which will cure us of the torments. By 
and by the wart works itself out by the roots, and we cast it from us 
forever. There are many warts growing on the body of life all around 
you ; they develop slowly, but after awhile you measure their magnitude 
by the evil they do and then comes the cure. 

My frinds, look carefully about you and tell us truly, can you not see 
these pests; have you not discovered them already; have they not begun 
to show in all their hideous and disgusting forms, upon your life; do you 
not feel the effects of their hypocrisy, their malice, their lies, their bull- 
dozing, their boycotting? Can you not feel their polluting tingle on your 
flesh? Look out for them — they are warts. 



GRIT, 

It requires lots of the stuff of which we preach to-day, to get through 
this world, and without it, thousands would, every hour, make a pillow 
of their burdens and lay down by the wayside to sleep that "dreamless 
sleep." 

The great force which rules and regulates this world and its affairs, 
has given to each of us more or less grit. It is the salt of our lives and 
we should dry up and blow away were it not for this. 

Grit gives us the nerve necessary to tackle life's perplexities ; it gives us 
courage to overcome disasters to our purse and persons; it makes us 
brave and enables us to push aside obstructions which prevent our life's 
journey being successfully made. It is grit that quiets minds that are 
disturbed; it's grit that enables us to smother feelings of malice; it's grit 
that restores reason temporarily misplaced because of gossip and scandal 
about ourselves. 

It is grit that enables men who have lost their fortunes to make a new 
start in life and seek to replace that which they have lost. When a man 
has sat on life's ragged edges many years, brought thither by his own 
follies or excesses, it's grit that assists him to live over his troubles. 
When a man is brought down to life's low levels by the errors of those 
in whom he has confidence and has trusted, it's grit that helps him up. 
When a man mourns and broods over the many misfortunes that come to 
him in his daily life, it's grit that assists in downing a feeling that prompts 
self-destruction. 

Without grit, and lots of it, many a man, alive and well to-day, would 
be sleeping the sleep that knows no waking. Without grit, many a man 
occupying a position of honor and trust to-day, would be subsisting upon 
the dregs of earth. 

When a man has once held a high social place and has been, through 
misfortune, removed from such a high, proud position, it's merely grit 
that helps him smother a desire to remove himself from his humiliation. 
Once in a while a man keeps up, for a long time, but he broods over his 
troubles, he thinks and thinks until his brain gives way and then a pistol 
ball ends his trials here at least. What troubles he may have to en- 
counter in the great beyond, none of us know. Without this grit, we are 
helpless, powerless to suggest to ourselves a remedy — a way out of our 
difficulties, our trials, our misfortunes. 



74 MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 

Wc do not l)clievc that there is anything on this earth that is more 
deniorahzing in its tendencies, than to know that we once occupied a high 
social, financial place in a community, and then be obliged to step down 
into a lower strata. It's not humiliating but it is demoralizing. It 
wrecks our minds as well as our bodies. It drives us to indulgence in 
excesses — this destroys the body, while the mind is poisoned by thoughts 
of other and better times. 

We once had a life of this kind in our midst and its ignominious ending 
makes us think. The end was but the natural result of long years of 
brooding and thinking over the ups and downs of this peculiar life. In 
the days and weeks and months, and years, it was pure grit that kept 
away the terrible final which came at last, when grit lost its grip. 

My beloved, you remember our preachings, you know what we have 
said, time and time again, that we cannot tell the true state of a human 
heart, by the deceptive smiles upon the face. That smile is often born 
after severe pain ; that happy look upon the face is merely a counterfeit 
— a mask to cover up the genuine, the real. The hand we shake in the 
morning belies the cold, dead heart that we carry within our breasts. 

Let every member of our congregation cultivate this great essential of 
life — grit, for, without it, your journey will be labored and difficult if not 
wholly a failure. Without it you cannot hope to win life's battle, and if 
you lose on your last deal, it's those you loved and leave behind who 
will have their own and these additional burdens to carry. None of 
those you see on your daily walks, are free from sorrows and troubles of 
this sort. There are no two of them alike. What is one man's pain may 
be another's pleasure, but each of us has something over which to worry. 
None of us are absolutely free — each has something to discourage, hu- 
miliate, mortify, and so we say, that it's only grit that will assist us in 
overcoming life's torments. 

Each family has its secrets, its skeleton, which are carefully concealed 
from the public gaze and scrutiny. Our children go wrong and we 
worry and lament and at times it seems as though our hearts would break. 
We harbor thoughts of murder sometimes, when we look at the domestic 
ruin in our homes. Sometimes we feel passion claiming possession of us 
and we cannot shake it off. Sometimes we have business dealings with 
dishonorable little squirts just starting in life, and it's merely the exercise 
of grit that enables us to hold our peace. Sometimes reputable people 
assail you and the community looks down on you and you feel your 
ambition oozing out at your fingers' ends, and if it were not for the topic 
of our preach to-day — grit, you are done up for good in this life, and 
perhaps in all the others that are to come after this. 

We cannot get along through this world without trouble; and it will 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 75 

come to you in all sorts of forms and shapes. You will be sorely afflicted 
in mind and body, and you must expect and be prepared for it and seek 
that which will enable you to meet these trials when they come, and the 
only rememdy is that of which we preach to-day — Grit. 



HABIT. 



The topic of our sermon to-day is probably the most common thing 
in this world. It is something which everyone has to deal with. The 
smallest, tiniest, wee little baby has habits, and so also has the oldest 
person on top of ground. Some of these habits of which we speak are 
good ones and some are very bad. 

Habits are something which grow upon us scarcely without our knowl- 
edge, and so we find our three hundred millions of people, each and 
every one of them, with one or more habits, either good or bad. 

It is not our intention or purpose in this sermon to classify these habits, 
nor to separate the good ones from the bad, but merely to call the atten- 
tion of our readers to this matter of habit and let each one think which 
of the many habits are fastened to themselves. 

Men and women placed upon this earth by one great Creator, are sup- 
posed to start life exactly alike. All infants are the same when they 
make their first appearance in this world, and then as they grow they de- 
velop the various traits which make them famous or infamous, as the 
case may be. By and by, when the baby has become a man, he finds him- 
self possessed of a desire to use to excess intoxicants; he feels an irresist- 
ible desire to steal; he cannot control his appetite for drugs — opium, mor- 
phine and similar compounds. On all others he is perfectly rational. 
He reasons intelligently regarding the various influences which make or 
wreck humanity, and yet is absolutely powerless to control the one single 
habit which has enslaved himself. Why is this, can any one tell? All 
over this world to-day arc thousands of people who are the victims of 
their habits. When these habits first appeared, there was no danger in 
them, but by and by they became a mighty cataract which swept every- 
thing before it and the victim is helpless. The Jekyll and Hyde element 
figures more largely in the make-up of the human family than most 
people are aware of, and as you look at some men and women you would 
scarcely believe the fact that they have some one habit they absolutely, 
positively, cannot control, and yet, the world is full of them. 

It does not belong to any one single class of people; it's not entirely 
the intelligent nor the ignorant, the high or low bred, but it comes to us 
all. The clergy are not exempt even, and there is many a good old min- 
ister of the gospel who takes a pull at his big black bottle before climb- 
ing his pulpit steps. People everywhere are victims of habits. They 



MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 77 

drink or smoke or chew or use snuff; they drink tea or coffee in injurious 
quantities; they inject morphine under their skin until the surface of 
their bodies looks like the target of a practicing company of sharp-shoot- 
ers; they stuff themselves with food and drink, when they know posi- 
tively that it will hurt them, but their desires are too strong for them and 
so they indulge and suffer the consequences. 

Thousands of graves are filled all over this world, by those who have 
murdered themselvse with opiates. Thousands lie dead, the victims of 
their own folly; adultery, infidelity and various other corruptions of a 
social nature have destroyed thousands more; thousands are leading 
double lives; thousands are wasting away in hospitals and at the homes 
of their charitable friends, because of their habits which they could not 
control. 

But how can we prevent all this? We incline to an opinion, which has 
become fixed in our mind, that all this cannot be avoided; cannot be 
prevented. Way back when the Bible was new, the men and women of 
those times were similarly afflicted, and the people of the whole world 
have been forming and acquiring and indulging habits ever since, and 
will so continue to the end of time. 

But what we cannot comprehend is, why a man or woman is cursed 
with an appetite or desires and then deprived of the moral courage to 
free him or herself from its bondage. We don't understand that. Why 
men and women will squirt morphine into themselves, or hit the pipe, 
or use any other stimulant to an unreasonable degree, when they know 
that each dose must be increased to produce the desired effect, and that 
they must keep on increasing it until death ends all desires. Why men 
are given brains and are then deprived of the power to protect them; 
why men are made intelligent upon every point save one, and that one 
allowed to destroy them. Why men will seek comfort and consolation 
in that which they know is sure ruin; why men will feed themselves 
upon that which kills, is something we cannot get through our skull. 

We know people, and possibly some of our readers do as well, who 
use morphine enough in twenty-four hours to kill a hundred men who 
are not accustomed to its use; but habit — a daily habit of many years — 
has made the users of this drug capable of taking their enormous doses 
without effect. 

We know men who can and do drink pure alcohol without a twinge 
of the muscles; without a twist of the face. It's a habit acquired by 
them many years ago, and now it cannot be driven away. 

All our readers know of the hundreds of young men who are carried 
away every year by excessive smoking of cigarettes; by the immoderate 
use of tobacco and cigars; by the corrupting influences of unholy desires 



78 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

of a social character; and yet every one of these so destroyed began in 
a modest manner, and it was the habit confirmed that has done them up. 

The Evangelist knows what he is talking about. We have a habit, and 
it requires a nerve of steel to control its desires, and yet it can be done. 
So all we can advise is, moderation in all things, as taught by the Book; 
and this done, you have by the neck your enemy — Habit, 



NOT IN IT. 

If everybody in this big world of ours had a soft snap, there would be 
no fun in living. If somebody was not victorious and somebdy "left" 
every dc.y in the week," people would have no ambition, no energy, no 
"git up." If all the people who walk the earth got everything they 
wanted without an effort, we would all lose interest in everything, and 
so it is that in all schemes, all plans, all endeavors, all attempts, there is 
somebody who is "not in it." 

Some of the people of this world sit behind the heavy oak counters 
of big banks, look toward their vaults and shake hands with themselves 
over their great luck; over the fact that they are in it; while others sit 
on high stools at our lunch counters and hate themselves because they 
are not. 

Some people can build railroads and steamboats, big hotels and busi- 
ness houses. They are in it. Others build castles in the air. They are 
not in it. Some people wear purple and fine linen, and diamonds sparkle. 
They are in it, while those who wear patches on their pants are not. 

It's a mighty good thing to be in it, and if we all knew how, we would 
be dandies; but we don't, and that's the matter, and it explains why so 
many of us are not in it. 

But, boys, some of those who are in it to-day, may not be to-morrow. 
We have known people who rode behind fifteen hundred dollar horses 
who are walking to-day. They were in it once, but are not now. These 
changes are liable to happen to any of us and at any time. It's as we 
have often said before, a see-saw; a whirligig. We go up and down; we 
all come round by and by. We are in it after awhile. 

There are times in all our lives when things look mighty blue; there 
seems to be something wrong; everything we touch topples over; every- 
thing we do proves a dead failure. We don't know why; we work just 
as hard, but somehow, things don't come our way. The reason is, we 
are not in it. Then, all of a sudden, without any special endeavor, mat- 
ters brighten up; we become encouraged again; take new interest in 
matters and things, and sail along life's river satisfied, contented and 
happy. We've got in it again. 

A young man working six days each week, for two or three dollars^ 
has not much to encourage him; but if he hangs on, he will be in it after 
awhile. A girl, standing behind a dry goods counter vv^ith a salary of 



80 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

five dollars a week, has occasion many times during those seven days 
to feel blue over the situation ; but still, if she is faithful, something bet- 
ter will develop by and by. We know ladies in Quincy, keeping many 
servants to-day, who once ran the country fields roundabout here bare- 
footed, and it was not so many years ago, either. They are in it now. 
Then they were not. 

Every day, as you pass along the streets, you meet hundreds of people 
who are not in it, and hundreds who are. How the fortunate ones be- 
came so fortunate, or how the unfortunate became so unfortunate, is 
something none of us can account for. It's merely the way of the world. 
The other day we met a man, who, a few years ago, was a successful, 
prosperous business man, in the tin line. To-day he is running a small 
little shop on a by-street, getting along somehow, from one day to an- 
other. In talking with him we found that he had been defrauded of his 
property by another, and his present condition is due to his not being in 
it. The other follow was. 

Each of us in this life has a duty to perform, a mission. We may 
not always know what it is, but we have one just the same; and before 
we are through this life, we will have found out what it was. It is the 
failures, the mistakes, the errors, the misfortunes, that we encounter as 
we go through our lives, that tell us so plainly that we are not in it, and 
it is the success that tells us who are. 

We get mad sometimes as we look at the good fortune of some hu- 
man hog; some stingy, miserly wretch who pinches every dime until it 
yells before he spends it. This hog prospers; everything he undertakes 
goes right; he makes money without half trying; he is fortunate in spec- 
ulation. He buys a piece of land and it increases in value; and yet, if 
you go to him for a dollar for some benevolent object, some charity, you 
will find he is not in it. 

It is a feature of this life to be first on the winning side and then among 
those who lose. It is one of life's characteristics to be up one day and 
down the next. It is a well-written law of nature that we all must float 
in the atmosphere where we belong, and if we attempt any other eleva- 
tion, we take a tumble. 

Yahoos who were once forced to eat with a pewter spoon, may be se- 
lected from the naturally aristocratic by the way they walk, the way they 
sit in their carriages, the way they hold their hands and wag their tongues. 
Nature draws the line, and the unfitted stay on the other side. They are 
not in it. 



CONTENTMENT IS BETTER THAN WEALTH. 

To be contented and satisfied with our lots in life; to he grateful and 
thankful for the conifcjrts and blessings we enjoy; to be appreciative of 
our joys, is to gain a great victory in tliis our struggle for existence. The 
world, as most of us find it, is full of trouble, full of sadness, full of ago- 
nies of both body and mind, and those, therefore, who willingly ruid de- 
liberately thrust themselves in the way of all these wretched things, arc 
scarcely an object of sympathy or pity; all such are more worthy of our 
scorn and contempt. 

Look, way back, over your own existence, beloved people, and tell us 
truly, if your lives, as a whole, have not been rather disappointing. Tell 
us whether or no it is not true that you have failed where you expected 
the greatest success. Tell us if that which you thought your best efforts 
have not proven your worst. Tell us if those for whom you have done 
the most, have not been the first to desert you when you most neerled 
the consolations and comforts they were capable of giving you. Tell us 
if you have not fallen, helpless, by the wayside of life, when every indi- 
cation pointed to great gains. Tell us if your highest ambitions of life 
have not been the first to humiliate you. Tell us of any occurrence, any 
event, any episode, any move you have ever made that has "panned out" 
exactly as you thought it would. 

Knowing then, the vicissitudes, the uncertainties, the realities of this 
life, we ask you candidly, are you not little above the idiot in intellect, to 
willfully thrust yourselves into the jaws of calamity and disaster, by 
worry and anxiety and dissatisfaction? 

None of us can have worldly affairs just the way we want them; we 
can do nothing to avert calamity; disaster and ruin and death come to 
one and all of us alike. We may be perplexed, we may plan and scheme 
and calculate, but the obstinacy of this life's affairs will flop things the 
wrong way every time. Why, then, this ceaseless, useless dicontent at 
the many situations we find ourselves in? It does no good; we are but 
burdening ourselves with additional and needless trouble. 

One day we sail along the street in high feather; the next we run home 
with our tail feathers pulled out by some rooster, sharper and keener than 
we. One day we jingle the chink in our pantaloons pocket, and the next 
we are striking our next friend for a small loan. One day we ride in an 
upholstered carriage, and the next, we arc wheeling in some man's coal. 



82 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

One day we are too proud to recognize our less fortunate friends, and 
the next, we would esteem it an honor to shake the hand of the common- 
est old rum-browned bum. One day we are right side up and marked 
glass, with care, and the next we are upside down and broke. One day 
we are treating everybody in the house, and in a jolly voice we say: 
"Come up everybody, and have a drink," and the next we are grabbing 
lunches. 

Now, this is your life, and it's ours — it's everybody's. We have seen 
this sort of thing all our lives, and we can to-day single out human re- 
verses by the score. We can see those who were way up yesterday, last 
week, a month, a year ago, who are way down to-day. We point to 
mounds in the churchyards and tell our friends the history of the failure 
in life of the one who lies buried there. We can see living wrecks, too, 
all around us. People whose ventures were unsuccessful, and they are 
now upside down, wrong side out, flat, busted. Why, then, the sense or 
reason in our continual worry and distress over the affairs of life? The 
confounded schemes don't work out our way; they never did, they never 
will. Why then not be contented and satisfied with what we are and 
have, and make the best of it? 

The Evangelist had rather be that man who lives happy and contented 
with his wife and children, in two small rooms, than to be the man who 
is unhappy and discontented in a palace. We had rather be that woman 
earning happily and cheerfully her own living by daily toil, than to be 
the finest lady in the land, bound with heavy chains of sorrow and dis- 
content. 

Learn contentment first, enjoyment afterward; learn to be satisfied 
first, luxury later; learn to be master and mistress of yourself first, then 
you may indulge a hope of leading others, later on in life; learn to be 
pleased with what you have, if you cannot have what you please; learn 
to love your homes, your wives, your children first, and then, if you have 
any leisure, you may gratify your ambition to succeed in business or 
speculation or trade, or commerce, or finance, or politics, or whatever 
else your ambition may suggest. But let your first thought be your wife, 
your children and your home. 

Mind you, now, the Evangelist says your own home, your own wife, 
not those belonging to some one else; and the very lives you lead will 
be as true a detector, as though your personal characters were printed in 
letters of fire and stuck in your hats. For that woman who is constantly 
on tlie street, or that man who is always hanging around the hotels and 
resorts, tell the public very plainly that their homes are unhappy, that 
their life partners afford them no joy or hope or happiness, and it is dis- 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 83 

content that is responsible for much, if not all, of these cases of domestic 
infelicity and marital wretchedness. 

Follow the teachings and practices and examples of the Evangelist, 
and they will steer you into a heaven before you die. Disregard our 
teachings, and you are in hell already. We can promise you nothing 
beyond the grave, and of this, we know just as much as any and all of 
the rest of our brother clergymen. But if you do as we direct you here, 
on this earth, we will promise you a domestic heaven, full of life and light, 
and joy and love; we promise you a perpetual sunshine and a sure thing 
on an earthly crown that blazes with precious stones of purity and beauty; 
an ornament that will do you some good here below; a diadem that peo- 
ple in the flesh may see and profit by; and the first step toward securing 
an earthly peace, is to secure at once that great boon, contentment, which 
you will find is vastly better than wealth. 



DO RIGHT, 

This world is full of human beasts who ridicule every good man ; who 
make sport of every one who makes an honest endeavor to do right. 

The secular press join in and belittle the efforts of Wananiaker and 
others of his class, as though it was among the impossibilities for a 
real good, true, christian man to hold public office. We have the most 
ardent admiration for an honest man who is good and does good; but 
the trouble is, that there are so many hypocrites now days, that it is 
difficult to distinguish between the genuine and the counterfeit. There 
is, however, a difference, and you can detect the spurious if you are 
careful. 

On every hand, all about us, we see men and women professing vir- 
tues they do not possess, and it disgusts us; but it should not deter us 
in our honest efforts to succeed in doing right. 

This is a great big world, and it is full of all sorts and kinds of people, 
and each is on the watch of the other, trying to find some flaw to pick 
at, and so, when one of us makes a mistake, it is a picnic for the rest, and 
they improve their time, scattering their information, and so it becomes 
harder for men and women at all times, to do right, but you can, if you 
will. 

When Christ was on earth, he was followed about by an illiterate gang 
who libeled him at every step. He was persecuted and abused by those 
who ought to have known better, but this good man kept right on in 
his own way, doing good. It's the same to-day; and when any man of 
special prominence professes goodness, and not only professes, but is 
good, the descendants of that same old gang follow him about burlesqu- 
ing his endeavors; ridiculing his efforts, belittling his acts, insinuating 
against his good motives. But those who are truly and really good 
will take no heed of this, but pursue their way, as though no one was 
mocking them. 

Men and women, high in learning, in society, in the church, often use 
their positions to further some devilish scheme, and the daily reports 
from everywhere bring tidings of their success; but, my beloved, their 
rac^ is soon run. They may succeed for a time, but they will be brought 
up to the bull-ring with a sudden jerk one of these days. 

We have no word to speak in condemnation of men and women who 
differ with us in their views. We have a great deal of real respect for 



MEDITATIONS (fF TWENTY YEARS. 85 

even a bad man if he confesses his badness and does his evil openly and 
above board; but for the hypocrite and the sneak we have not words 
at our command sufficiently expressive to tell of our abhorencc. 

If a man needs a drink and walks straight in at the open front door 
and gets it, we have respect for him; but only contempt for the white- 
haired fraud and imposter who prays and goes after his toddy through the 
alley and the back door. 

We can smile with satisfaction at the man who goes fishing on Sunday 
if he goes boldly and "right before people/" but we hate the humbug who 
gets away on his Sunday fishing expedition before daylight and returns 
after dark. 

A few weeks ago a friend of ours in this very city took his two little 
children out one Sunday to give them a little picnic in the woods. On 
his way thither he was met by a hypocrite who proceeded to lecture our 
friend roundly on the wickedness of bringing up his children in this un- 
godly way. Well, a few weeks later this hypocrite was himself arrested 
and placed under heavy bail for crime, and whether guilty or not, the 
preachings of the man are valueless. 

Do right, my beloved — that is, as you see it. If your conscience is 
clear and you want to do what others condemn as wrong, go ahead and 
do it. If you want to go to church, go; if not, stay at home and never 
interfere with others who have their own ideas as well as you. A man 
may occupy a high social position and still be a sneak and rascal. A man 
may be way up in some commercial place, and yet be the talk of the 
town for his evil ways. A man may have a good wife and children at 
home, and still ride horseback and flirt with the girls, but he is a puppy, 
all the same, and the contempt of all decent people who are onto him. 

There is but one way to get through this life safely, successfully; and 
boiled down, it's two little words that form our text to-day — do right. 



FINDING A LEVEL. 



The great social, domestic world is as evenly balanced, as thoroughly- 
regulated, as is the most delicate portions of all the other great machinery 
of this big universe. Its various parts are well lubricated; its revolutions 
as regular; its motions and results as perfect, and one only has to watch 
life and its events and its happenings, to become convinced that what we 
say is true. 

Every now and then you will see a man or woman, one or both, who 
is living "swell." They give cai^d parties and luncheons and receptions. 
They are apparently way up in the social swim, and thus they sail along 
smoothly, as fai^ as you can see or know; when, all of a sudden, the com- 
munity is startled, as by a clap of thunder from a clear summer sky, with 
the information of their downfall. We are stunned, shocked, paralyzed 
by some dreadful announcement, and yet, why should we be? It's merely 
the enforcement of nature's great law; the re-adjustment of life's affairs, 
tlie settling back into natural positions of the false, the fraud, with tlie 
real and the true. 

People sometimes succeed in gulling the public for a long time. They 
play their cards well and hold winners more frequently than other peo- 
ple, but at last comes the real and the correct, and then you discover that 
these people have maintained themselves so long by the grossest abuses 
of the privileges of an easy-going public sentiment. 

Among the many torments of this life that annoy and perplex, there 
are some delightful tilings, and among them the fact that people cannot 
always continue their counterfeit lives. The truth will prevail by and 
by, and then we all know of the humbuggery, the deceit, the fraud, that 
these exposed people have practiced for years to maintain themselves in 
a life position that they are not fitted by nature to fill. 

My beloved, you cannot monkey with nature. That is something be- 
yond the most skillful of human devices. Nature stamps all its works, 
and its brands are all patented, and no matter how shrewd, how clever 
humanity is, when an attempt is made to deceive or improve on nature, 
it fails every time. There is something genuine about all of nature's 
work, and all attempts to counterfeit it prove inglorious failures. 

Common, uneducated men, by some pulling of wires, assisted by ac- 
quaintances, have before now climbed into social places, and they have 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 87 

hung on there for a number of years, but at last their grip loosened and 
they tumbled back to their natural places. 

Educated and refined people are always modest; they always wait to 
be asked to occupy prominent place. The low, coarse and common, al- 
ways push themselves into high places unbidden. 

Seedy men, with worn and faded garments, whose baths are few and 
far between, live along isolated and unkempt for many years. They at- 
tract no attention, because they belong by nature just where they are. 
All of a sudden they appear decked out in the height of fashion, but 
their clothes don't fit; there is something about them that betrays the 
wearer of those garments; their feet shamble, their knees knock to- 
gether, their hands find no easy place, and yet, no matter how much their 
garments have cost, no matter how earnest their attempt at polished 
manners, you can tell at a glance that these people do not belong on the 
level along which they are attempting to sail, and by and by, they take 
a drop, and it is heavy, you bet. 

A man born poor has a great big world before him, and free libraries 
all over this land afford that poor man the opportunity of educating him- 
self, and there are thousands all over this land occupying high places in 
professional, political, commercial life, who began with nothing in the 
way of capital, save a good name, an honest purpose, the legacy of good 
parents. Such men succeed in life because they have made an earnest, 
honest endeavor to educate, to perfect themselves in the line of real and 
true manhood, and when low people attempt to imitate these good ex- 
amples, they always fail. 

A man may have a barrel filled with boodle; he may dress extrava- 
gantly; he may live in luxurious apartments and still be a fool. For a 
time his "stufT" may keep him afioat, but through it all you read the 
clown, the boor, the ignoramus, and one day, when you least expect it, 
the fraud exposes himself, and we find him just where he belongs; just 
where nature intended he should be — at the bottom. He has, by his 
own act, revealed to the world the truth ; he has found his natural level. 

My beloved, do not attempt to sail in an atmosphere too rarefied for 
you; keep yourself where you belong, where you know you belong, 
and every man of sense knows where that is. Do not attempt to keep 
pace with those who own dollars where you do pennies. Do not force 
yourself into a sphere you cannot maintain; for if you do, just as sure 
as fate, you will be knocked out; forced back to the lower places from 
whence you rose before you were prepared by education to fill the more 
exhalted place, you will surely find your level sooner or later. 



A HYPOCRITFS SMILE. 



Billy Shakespeare never wrote a truer line than this: "A man may 
smile and smile and be a villain still." That's right; and a woman, too. 

There is nothing on all this earth so exasperating as the smile of a 
hypocrite, and a hypocrite is always a villain, no matter what the sex. 

To see people around you with their faces beaming all over with smiles 
which you know to be counterfeit, is where you test your endurance. 
Just how long you can tolerate them without an explosion, depends upon 
your level-headedness. 

The smile of a hypocrite is always upon the face of an ignorant person. 
You never saw an intelligent being who was hypocritical, never. 

People may wear fine clothes, deck themselves all over with ribbons 
and satins, and then murder the English language when they speak. 
It's heart-rending to hear such people talk; every sentence is ungram- 
matical; every other word an error; and this is the class who talk behind 
your back and smile upon you when you are looking at them. 

The great Creator made these people for some purpose known to 
himself, but us poor, weak mortals, cannot see why; understand why. 
They seem to us villains, and they are, so far as being of any use is con- 
cerned, only to make other people wretched and unhappy. In this they 
are very successful, and they accomplish their work astonishingly well. 

It always amxises us to hear these people talk. They never read any- 
thing and can talk about nothing, and yet they imagine they are creat- 
ing a wonderful impression upon their listeners. They are, but in a very 
different manner from what they think. We laugh way down in our 
stomach at them, and pity the ignorant creatures, while they mortify us 
claiming our friendship, and the smile they give you is the smile of a 
hypocrite and a fraud. 

But like bed-bugs and mosquitos and snakes, such people were no 
doubt built for a purpose, and one day, possibly, we shall know what that 
purpose is. In the meantime, we must endure these pests with the others. 

It has been our experience that the people we have done the most for 
were those who appreciated it least; those who have been reared amid 
selfishness and thoughtlessness are they who first forget their obligations, 
those who had not the brain sufficiently large to comprehend the kind- 
ness that had been bestowed upon them. 

The whole world is full of such people, and they thrive just as well. 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 89 

seemingly, as the other sort, and so it is very discouragingly — an en- 
deavor to be anything better. 

When we read in newspapers complimentary notices of some villain 
who beats his wife, or abuses his children, or swindles his neighbors, we 
think how very trifling are the affairs of this world and how little to en- 
courage a man to higher aims in life. 

The experience of all our congregation has been the same as ours. 
They have all felt the shame of a hypocrite's work; the humiliation of a 
hypocrite's tongue. They have all been irnposed upon, deceived by this 
semi-civilized element who have a place on the earth the same as other 
people. Our congregation has all felt the sting of a hypocrite's tongue, 
and therefore know just what the effect is, and there is no remedy. It 
was always so, from the time the world began until the present hour. 
The Judas at the Last Supper sits at our tables to-day, and as he smiles, 
he plans your ruin ; and thousands of years hence it will be the same. 

There is but one way we know of to overcome the effect of these peo- 
ple's hypocritical methods, viz.: keep away from them. Remain in your 
own homes; attend to your own business; labor all the time; keep busy 
at something; stick close to your own families; educate your children 
thoroughly, and there will be little danger of them ever becoming hypo- 
crites. 

It is a difficult thing to get through this life, anyway, and we must be 
continually on our guard against the assaults of the hypocrite — beware 
perpetually of the hypocrite's smile, for the hypocrite, either he or she, 
may smile and smile again and be a villain still. 

You are not safe even in your own home; it is invaded by the ignorant 
against your will, and around your own fireside, appropriating your own 
possessions, the ignorant, low-lived class smirch your character. They 
are prompted to do this by various reasons — malice, hatred, jealousy; one 
or all. Nothing is sacred to these people. They are cold and inhuman, 
and the only way to avoid contamination is to keep yourself free from 
their influences. Have nothing in common with them. They are com- 
mon, very common people, and they know no better than to poison the 
air that is breathed by their best friends. They have not the mental ca- 
pacity to appreciate kindness; they came from the dregs and they fatten 
still upon its pollution, and you may know all these people by the heading 
of our preach to-day — A Hypocrite's Smile. 



MONEY, 



If there is anything on the face of this earth that money will not buy, 
we do not know what it is. It will secure every comfort ; it will put in- 
competent men into important places; it will secure the acquittal of those 
deserving punishment; it makes a thief respectable; it will open the gates 
of society to the rankest villain; it will cover up the iniquities of all 
classes; it will secure comforts without end; it will build up and destroy; 
it will purify and befoul people, character and things ; it will control the 
destinies of a mighty nation; it will educate the ignorant; it will cover 
up deformities and warps and twists in humanity; it will ease a guilty 
conscience and pave the way for individual success. Money! Money 
will accomplish anything on the face of the earth, either good or bad. 

There is many a man in the penitentiary to-day who never would have 
been there if he had been the "proud possessor" of money enough, and 
there is many a man walking the earth a free man to-day, who would 
have been in jail, but for the fact that he possessed that which kept him 
out, viz. : money. 

It's all nineteen-twentieths of the people of the whole world are after; 
it's all they think about; all they work, toil, struggle and sufifer for. 
Money has joined many a mental and physical deformity to health and 
happiness of the opposite sex, only to destroy and wreck. 

Money has made many a bad man good and good one bad. Money 
has lifted out of the slough of despond many a weary mortal, and it has 
swallowed up many a one. Money has been the cloak for many a villain 
to destroy confidence and ruin valuable lives and property. Money has 
cleared many a scoundrel before the bar of justice. Money has destroyed 
vigorous manhood; it has cracked many a character; it has warped 
many a constitution. It has restored the sick and has made imbeciles of 
those who were well. It has made men the firmest friends and the dead- 
liest enemies. It has worked off many an old maid onto men who ought 
to have known better. 

My beloved, it's just as we say; we know of nothing in all this world 
that money will not do. Nothing that is good, nothing that is bad, but 
that money will handle and control completely. 

It is too bad that respectability, brain, character, cannot compete \vith 
money, but it cannot. The most notorious outlaw can control position, 



MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 91 

society, politics and commercial affairs, if he has enough money, and this 
is a cause for real regret ; but there is no help for it ; none whatever. 

A man with money can neglect his family, indulge in concubines, be 
licentious. He can commit any outrage against society, and yet main- 
tain a respectable place among the respectable people of the world, and 
though scores of them know he is not fit to associate with decent people, 
yet they are afraid to say so, for fear that the man may use his means to 
punish them for telling the truth. 

Virtue is made a toy, honesty a joke, honor a by-word, by money. 
Rottenness it tolerated in society; scandals hushed up; newspapers are 
corrupted; soiled linen is laundried by public means, conducted privately; 
absconders and embezzlers are given certificates of good moral charac- 
ters ; quacks are enabled to practice medicine ; rascals are elected to office 
by means of that of which we preach to-day — Money. 

It would indeed be a great day if people were judged by and credited 
with the virtues they possessed, instead of being m.easured by the size of 
their pile. It would be a great day if men were honored for their good 
deeds, applauded for their moral heroism, cheered for their manliness, 
instead of for the money they can control. It would be a great day if 
men were encouraged for their respectability, instead of to increase their 
pile at the bank. But, my beloved, we do not believe that such a state of 
aflfairs will ever exist in this world. It is getting worse and worse every 
year, and money is the absolute lever that moves the whole world and 
everything in it. While this is true in every paiticular, there are other 
things to consider in gaining money, and each of our readers must be 
his and her own judge just how much they can afford to sacrifice in order 
to gain wealth. If they have no conscience, no sympathy, no humanity, 
no love or affection, they are then good material to work on ; but if they 
want something else besides the "simply honors," conferred on the rich, 
it may be well enough to consider personal reasons first, and then, in the 
gaining of riches, you will not lose your characters, your reputations. 
Your conscience will not trouble you, and you won't have the nightmare, 
as you dream of the dirty tricks, the rascality you have indulged in while 
you have been increasing your wealth while making that which has 
formed our text to-day — Money. 



GLITTER. 

In this day and generation, it's the ghtter that seems to catch on, no 
matter whether tlierc is anything snl:)stantial about it or not; if it shines, 
that goes. 

Yon may take tlic worst vagabond on earth; a man without character, 
without reputation; a man known to be morally corrupt, horribly bad, 
cruel and vicious; but if he wears fine clothes and is ornamented with 
diamonds, he can walk in the best society in this land, 

A woman, also, though she may be indolent and shiftless, ignorant to 
the extreme, yet, if she is arrayed in silks and satins, she receives more 
attention than she can attend to. 

The vilest dens in our land to-day are the most attractive, Money is 
lavished in gdlt and crystal and glitter, and, as we say, the more corrupt- 
ing the place is to the morals of men and women, the brighter it shines. 

Some years ago we were a visitor in a gambling house in Chicago. 
We went there in company with several newspaper men, not to buy 
chips, but to see the place, and we saw it. It was grand and cost thou- 
sands of dollars to fit it up. It was covered with silver and gold mount- 
ings. The fire-place had been purchased in Europe at a cost of two thou- 
sand dollars, and everything was lavish and beautiful. But it caught 
the boys, and hundreds of them were dropping their wad up stairs. 

Why is it that vice is covered, while virtue hides itself in dark places? 
Why is everything that is bad covered with that which attracts, and every- 
thing that is good, is shaded with gloom? Why will men spend money 
so lavishly on anything that is bad, that is corrupt, and kick so over a 
single dollar given for any good purpose? 

Why arc sinful resorts furnished with the finest furniture, the easiest 
chairs, the brightest lights, and the resorts of the good so shabbily ar- 
ranged? It's a great mistake to build a fine church and leave the seats 
uncushioned. There are easier seats elsewhere, and the boys find them 
witliout any trouble. It's the glitter that catches the eye and the crowd. 

The most intellectual man or woman in the world, would not attract 
even a i)assing notice if they wore jeans clothes, while the biggest fool 
on earth, if arrayed in purple and fine linen, would gather a crowd of ad- 
mirers wherever he went. It's the glitter, the dazzle, the sparkle, that 
gets there now days. 

It is unfortunate that it is so, but there is no use talking about it, there 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 93 

you are; it's a fact, and you might just as well accept it. You never can 
shine unless you put on the shiners. You have got to do it to keep up 
with the procession as it is to-day. 

We would much prefer that intelligence were the passport; that brains 
were the open sesem to society; that men and women were sought after 
for their real worth, but, alas, that won't work. It's the glitter. A 
calico dress and hickory shirt stand no show now days, and the brightest 
young man in the world could never receive even a nod of recognition 
from a society belle, if he were dressed i" homespun. Society demands 
of our youth more than they can stand. It costs them more than they 
can earn to clothe themselves properly for entrance into society. They 
stand it for awhile, keep getting deeper and deeper in debt, until, by and 
by, you hear something, and the community is again shokcd at another 
good young man gone wrong. But it's the glitter that did the business 
for the young man. He couldn't shine without good clothes; good 
clothes cost money. He couldn't earn enough, and so he tapped the till 
of his employer, and there you are once more — the glitter. 

The love of the glitter has ruined thousands of our young women, 
and thousands more are being ruined every year. The love of dress and 
jewels has destroyed them body and soul, and this will continue, year 
after year, until there is a revolution, a reform, a change in that which 
affects so disastrously our society of to-day. It will continue until some- 
thing else rules the world and people besides the glisten and the glitter. 

If a man, wearing seedy clothes, walks into a hotel and registers his 
name, the clerk immediately shoots him up the elevator to the top floor, 
while the brainless dude, with his fine duds and diamonds, occupies room 
number one, on the parlor floor. 

Barbers will "soldier" on a customer, in their endeavors not to catch 
the grizzly patron with cow hide boots, while the same artist will hurry 
the man in his chair through, that he may catch the dandy, with only 
the price of a shave in his pocket; and so it goes; it's so everywhere 
and with everybody. We are all after the dazzle, the glitter. 



IT'S FUNNY. 



If a man could explain all things in this life, he could make a fortune 
in a brief space of time. If he could answer all the questions that curious 
people would ask, he would be a human wonder. But no man, nobody, 
can answer or explain many of the queer and curious things of this pe- 
culiar life. No one ever will. 

We see things every day that puzzle us, worry us, annoy us, but we 
cannot prevent their happening; we can only stand and stare and won- 
der. 

We have said it before, many times, yet it is still the same in our mem- 
ory, and we marvel all the more as time passes and the curious things are 
yet unexplained, and day by day the world is slipping away, and life's 
mysteries are mysteries still. 

Why is it, do you suppose, that people in our large cities are freezing to 
death every winter, while thousands of cords of wood lie rotting on the 
banks of all our rivers? Why is virtue and sobriety allowed to wallow 
in the mire and filth of this world, while the impure and the loafer are 
permitted to walk in high places? 

Why does the bum and the thief enjoy good health, while the pure 
and good among the people are writhing on beds of pain? 

Why is the pure woman forced to earn a living at hard work in the 
factory, the office, the store, while the adventuress is arrayed in purple 
or fine linen and covered with diamonds? 

Why is the wife so often deserted for the mistress? Why is the good 
man made to suffer from the stings of poverty, while the bad one flour- 
ishes amid the pleasures of life? Why is the poor clergyman, whose 
whole life is devoted to doing good, forced to struggle for the wretched 
living he makes, while the owner of a trotting horse grows rich by the 
money he wins on the race track? 

Why do rank, noxious, poisonous weeds grow without the slightest 
care, while rare, useful, valuable plants wither and die under the tender- 
est cultivation and care? Why do the ragged, dirty children of the slums, 
escape all the dread diseases, while clean and carefully attended children 
are stricken down? 

Why is it that the trainman who is the sole support of a widowed 
mother and fatherless sisters and brothers, always is the one who is in- 
jured or killed in the railroad accident? Why is it that the bad is so 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 95 

easy, and the good so hard? Why can the depraved and vicious succeed 
in everything they undertake, while the decent people among our men and 
women always fail in their endeavors? 

Why is it that the meanest people on this earth are always more suc- 
cessful in their undertakings than those who are personally popular with 
all mankind? Why is it that great, lubberly human hogs can board in 
big hotels and surround themselves with every luxury of life, while gen- 
teel and educated gentlemen are forced to economize in everything, in 
order to "make both ends meet?" 

Why does the "sport" wear diamonds and the preacher a patch on his 
pants? Why can an illegitimate business pay big rents and salaries and 
grow in popular favor, while the legitimate starves to death, although 
strictly economical in every particular? Why can a scoundrel who is 
rich, enter the best society in the land, while the honest man remains on 
the outside? 

If a man could answer these, and thousands of other similar questions, 
satisfactorily, he would command large audiences every hour in the day. 
^ It is altogether probable that in the beginning all things were perfect — 
even our first parents, Adam and Eve — but from that day until this, peo- 
ple have gradually degenerated, until the evil among them are largely 
in the majority. Once bad men and women were shut completely out 
of respectable company; but it's not so now. Once a wicked man was 
shunned by all who were good; now it makes no difference how bad a 
man may be morally, if he has plenty of boodle, he can go anywhere, do 
anything, and no questions will be asked and no one will oppose him in 
anything he may undertake. 

Now, my beloved, do not grow weary with well doing; do not become 
discouraged, but keep right on in the right way; for, while sin may ap- 
parently be reposing in a bed of rosees, the thorns will wound by and by. 
It may seem easier to do wrong, but there is a punishment that follows 
that's tough, and no one who does wrong can escape. So, my beloved, 
fear the punishment and keep away from all that is corrupt and evil among 
the affairs and people of this world. 

You cannot make us believe that the ugly, the wicked, the mean among 
the people, can always be successful in this life. We believe, and firmly 
too, that all such will get their deserts before they leave this world. We 
do not believe that stolen money or valuables ever did the thief any good. 
We do not believe that the destroyer of human happiness will get clear 
through this life without his share of the wretchedness he has caused 
others. But just why the great Ruler of life's affairs, as preached by 
some, allows wickedness to flourish at all, is something we cannot under- 
stand. Why sin and the sinner are not wiped off the face of the earth. 



96 MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 

is beyond our comprehension. Why the bad are permitted to do their 
bad deeds at all, is something we cannot explain. It is one of the "funny 
things" about which we preach to-day. 

Virtue in rags and vice in velvet has been the order for many years; 
but we shall not attempt an explanation of why. We could not tell if we 
would, because we do not know. 

There is lots of suffering among the good people of this world, and 
lots of pleasure among the bad ; but it will not last forever. We believe 
that by and by there will be a change, and that the evil among our people 
will be punished and the good receive their reward; but, looking at life 
and its affairs, we cannot help but say it's funny. 



THE PRODIGAL SON. 



Every reader of these Sermons has read, heard or knows all about the 
biblical prodigal son. They are familiar with that rash and wayward 
boy; how he left his happy home, a home surrounded with every com- 
fort, luxury and blessing. You follow him and see how low he descends 
in the scale of human degradation. 

That boy was influenced just as thousands of our boys of this day and 
generation are influenced. He grew weary of home discipline, home 
teachings, home restraints. Perhaps his father was exacting and system- 
atic and methodical in home management. Perhaps the father imposed 
upon the family a strictness that became a burden, and while done for 
the future good of the children of the household, it became irksome to 
this particular son, who, no doubt, had a mind, and an instinct, and meth- 
ods and bearings of his own; and so it was he grew weary of this re- 
straint, this dicipline, and concluded to shake the home and go out into 
the world and battle for himself in his own way, and he went. 

But his calculations miscarried ; he made a mistake ; he overrated his 
own personal powers and abilities, and his strike on his own account 
was a failure most dismal. 

But this boy, this prodigal son, suffered alone. He made no kick, but 
went into the pasture and filled his belly with the husks that the swine 
did eat, rather than hang 'round the corners watching for some one from 
his own town from whom he could borrow a five or a ten on the strength 
of old acquaintance or neighborly interest. He did not guzzle nor play 
the dead beat. He had no evil companions; he was not a lounger nor 
hanger-on at public resorts, waiting for some one to ask him up to take 
a drink. He was not a bum. He merely had made a failure of his first 
start in life for himself, and after making a manful endeavor to succeed; 
after eating with the hogs ; after getting way, low down, he came to him- 
self, and thinking over the past and the future, he reasoned and said: 
'T will arise and go to my father," etc. — a very sensible conclusion for 
this ambitious young man to come to. Now, how is it with the sons — 
the prodigal sons — of this day and generation? They are not satisfied 
with degrading themselves, but they must, and do, drag others down 
with them. The fathers and the mothers and the sisters and the brothers 
are all drawn into this degrading whirlpool and are all swallowed up to- 
gether. 

When we come to compare the biblical prodigal son with the sample 



98 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

to-day, wc cannot refrain from cxprcssinj^ an opinion that the prodigal 
of this early time was much more of a man, an honorable man, than the 
best among the prodigal sons of to-day. 

The Evangelist was np in Chicago, recently, and passing the corner of 
Jackson and Dearborn streets, we encountered a boy who was down on 
his luck. He looked rusty, shabby, bummy, and he struck us for a dol- 
lar. We gave him a half, to get a "shave and a breakfast," so he said, 
and we followed him and saw our half dollar passed over a bar on Monroe 
street. 

Well, perhaps, by and by, this misguided young man will see the folly 
of his evil ways, take a tumble to himself and return to his home in this 
city. Possibly not; but wc wish to impress upon all our congregation, 
that the prodigal son of old was vastly superior to the prodigal son of 
to-day. 

As we write this Sermon, our mind wanders back almost thirty years. 
It was night, antl a dozen or more of us boys were together in a bar-room, 
and one of that party was a prodigal son. He had grown weary of home 
restraints and he had informed his father that if he would give him one 
hundred dollars he would never "darken the door again." Well, this boy 
got his hundred, and he met the gang at the saloon, and we drank Tom 
and Jerry until train time, and we all went down the hill and saw this 
prodigal son off on the Chicago train. Well, we pass hurriedly over the 
next few months, but the life of this prodigal son was tough, and he, like 
the prodigal of old, gave up the fight, came home, and this prodigal is 
to-day a leading business man. He is at the head of a most interesting 
family, is one of our best citizens; lives in a fine home, and perhaps never 
thinks of the night we all "got together" in front of the hotel bar and 
drank to his success and prosperity forever, and of how dismal a failure 
was his first life's endeavor alone. To look at the dignity that marks the 
gait and daily doings of this old friend of ours, you would never suspect 
that "once upon a time" he was a prodigal son. 

The prodigal son as told about in scripture, is not a marker to the 
prodigal son of this day and generation. The first prodigal son suffered 
all alone; he drew no others into his troubles. He placed the blame of 
his errors on none. He accused no one of leading him astray. He 
blamed no one but himself, notwithstanding the ten'i[)tations that beset 
him on evry hand. He alone it was who suffered, and the Evangelist 
has often thought that the ])rodigal of old was much more of a man than 
the prodigal of to-day, for the very and only reason that the prodigal of 
Bible history was a self-denying, a personal enemy of himself, while the 
prodigal of this day not only ruins himself, but his whole family, socially 
and financially, and of the two, give us the early prodigal son. 



** WIPE OFF THE SLATE/' 



We wonder how many of our congregation have run an account with 
the bar? We wonder how many of our members have "had it charged?" 
We wonder how many have been behind in Hfe's affairs as in the commer- 
cial transactions of the day and year? ^ 

Every honest man, every honest woman, wants to feel him or herself 
square with the world, and it is a satisfaction to know that after years of 
personal debt, after years of obligations, after years of indebtedness, that 
we can "wipe of¥ the slate.'* 

Many of us can look way back into a past that was most happy ; we can 
see flowers and blossoms and sunshine; we can see beauty and bright- 
ness; we can inhale sweet perfumes, and look back to a time when all 
was cheer and hope ; when ambition reigned ; when we strove to win life's 
battle; when we knew no sorrow, no woe, no wretchedness. We. can 
look way back when home was encircled with sunbeams, when pleasures 
and happiness reigned; and then we look into the dark places and sec 
phantoms of the past. We can remember when our surroundings were 
intellectual; when our associates were cultivated and refined, and then 
we compare the then with now, and it makes us more anxious than ever 
to wipe off the slate. 

My beloved, the Evangelist can remember a time when lilHes bloomed ; 
when roses scattered their sweet fragrance around; when the sunshine 
chased the shadows from the pathway. We can remember when the 
songs of sweet birds were all in tune; when hearts beat happily; when 
it was always midday, and when clouds never came; and then again we 
can see the check of the illiterate, the gall of the ignorant, the long tongue 
of the fool and the ignoramus. We can see the broad road that leads to 
eternal death, and see the throng that follows this great highway, and we 
can also see the narrow road that leads to everlasting peace, and the few 
that are traveling that way. 

Every seed decays before it produces fruit; every fond hope dies, but 
that death brings new life to something hitherto unknown. The Evan- 
gelist can look back to a time when everything smacked of joy, and then, 
in a few short months, we found ourselves overwhelmed with a torrent 
of irresistible force, and we threw up our hands on command, and fate 
went through us. 

It is easy enough to do right, to be good, when things go your way, 



100 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

but it requires a brain, a determination as well, to do the correct thing 
when things go wrong in our life's affairs. 

Scores of times in our short life, have we thought it best to make a 
pillow of our burdens and lay down upon them by the wayside and sleep ; 
and then, way out from some obscure corner, would come an encourage- 
ment, and we would take new hope, new courage, new life, and brace up, 
and wipe off the slate, and try once more to win this battle of life. 

Oftentimes have we concealed ourselves behind our fears and hopes; 
often have we worried and wearied over possible results; often have we 
worn a troubled look over schemes that have miscarried. 

We have sat in solitude, all alone, and contemplated fearful things, 
when in the deepness of our gloom came a friendly warning, and we 
have then and there decided to begin anew — to wipe off the slate. 

Many years ago the Evangelist began his battle of life, and like many 
others we encountered obstructions; we met enemies; we bumped up 
against scandal-mongers; we ran against the slanderer. But then we 
had a mainstay, a support. We had an encouragement; we lived and 
hoped that things would turn out for the best, and they did. 

We felt a strong influence, a mighty help in these our times of trouble, 
and we leaned against those hopes and were supported. We have seen 
those hopes decay, and all before Uo was great, black, forbidding clouds. 
We lived thus for many years, and then, way off in one corner, came a 
ray of hope. We clutched at it as the drowning man at a straw, and 
were saved; and this mellowed our heart, and we were willing to "wipe 
off the slate." 

Those of our congregation who are in trouble; those of you whose 
loads are more than you can carry; those who feel as we have felt, like 
laying down your sorrows and making of them a pillow; those of you 
who are discouraged; those disheartened, those ready to give up the 
ghost, let us implore you to make one more effort to win life's battle. 

My dearly beloved, make a barricade of your misfortunes; use your 
calamities as breastworks ; employ your failures as a defense for your pro- 
tection; make up your mind to pocket insults; to smother your injuries; 
to forget the past and begin once more; and to do all this, you must 
wipe off the slate. 



IT IS HOPE. 

All of our many readers well remember the trinity, Faith, Hope and 
Charity; and it has been said that the greatest of these is Charity; but 
we do not believe it. Indeed, it is not; for Hope double discounts Char- 
ity in all its details, in all its various and many parts. 

It is Hope that gives a man and woman strength to continue the battle 
of life after years of disappointment and failure. It is Hope that cheers 
a weary soul. It is Hope that strengthens faint hearts. It is Hope that 
stimulates the anxious parent to look forward to something better, some- 
thing brighter for their erring children. It is Hope that fills aching 
hearts with cheer and gives weary souls a rest. It is Hope that enables 
men and women to look beyond a bitter present to a brighter future. It 
is Hope that enables us to lay aside our sorrows and wear smiles. It is 
Hope that saves many a human being from tumbling headlong over 
desolation-'s brink. 

It is hope that our ill luck will change, that our misfortunes are ended, 
or that they will soon end. It is a hope that strengthens the weak, who 
without it would fall at once into the bottomless pit. 

The best of us, in this life, are continually tormented by one thing or 
another. We are forever being worried by all sorts of facts and fancies, 
real and imaginary. We are humiliated and chagrined at the innumera- 
ble features of life over which we have no control, and yet, for which we 
are not responsible. Where, my beloved, would we be were it not for 
Hope? 

The hungry in these distressing times are kept up by Hope — hoping 
that the morrow may give them food. The widow and the fatherless are 
encouraged to hope for a change in their wretched condition, and that 
relief will soon come and remove them from their distress. It is Hope 
that feeds the soul; that encourages the weak; that strengthens the 
weary. It is Hope that saves many a man and woman each and every 
year from going to their destruction, prematurely. 

The child hopes that its childish desires may be gratified; the grown 
people that their heavier trials may be lightened; the youth hopes that 
the maiden of his choice may at last be all his own; the innocent maiden 
hopes that no evil may befall her beloved. 

We see a lonely and a sad wife, sitting all alone. Her home ought to 
be a happy one; and it is Hope, and Hope alone, that keeps her up. 



102 MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 

Day by day she sees her dreams proven the contrary; day by day she 
sees her hopes decay; and, my beloved, were it not for Hope, what would 
there be left for this one single sample of womanly wretchedness? 

It has been said that "hope deferred maketh the heart sick." Possibly; 
and yet, were it not for this hope, the heart would be a mighty sight sicker 
than it is. It is Hope that keeps us all up in this life. It is Hope that 
gives us new life. It is Hope that serves as a balm for our ills when all 
else fails. It is Hope that polishes the rough edges on all of the affairs 
of life, and without this Hope all of us would fall far short in all of our 
life's affairs. Give us Hope instead of Charity every time. 

Away from home, in some obscure corner, is to-day a young man who 
but for his own indulgences, might be a grand success in this life. As 
we have said before, he is matured beyond his years, and yet, with all 
his favorable surroundings, this young man is making a sepulchre of 
the material that nature gave him for the building of a throne. A.11 of 
those who are interested in this young man have nothing left but Hope, 
A few years ago we saw a youth, full of vigor, who possessed talent and 
business qualifications, who deliberately chose the broad and easy road 
that leads to everlasting death and torment. His many friends gave 
him up, but the Evangelist did not. We wrote a letter to the father of 
this youth, urging patience. We knew he would come out all right in 
the end, and he did; and to-day occupies a high and honorable place in 
the commercial and financial world. It was only our Hope, and it won. 

My beloved, the Evangelist has been tortured and tormented in many 
ways. We have seen the time when we were all ready to "shuffle off 
this mortal coil," and it was Hope, only Hope, that stayed the execution 
of our contemplated intentions, to end this life's terrors and torments; 
and then, way off in the dark, came a light that was bright, and clear, and 
beautiful, and we saw at last the realization of our hopes, and finally we 
assented to the fact and said, as others have said before : It is Hope. 



YOUR ENEMIES. 



Every man and every woman, every child, even, on the face of this 
earth, has enemies. No one escapes; and if such a thing were possible, 
we should look with curiosity and suspicion upon that human being who 
claimed to have no enemies. 

There is one period when it appears that we are without enemies, and 
that it at our death. When the clergyman is called to "make a few re- 
marks" before we are planted, he says everything nice about us. You 
never heard of a preacher telling the truth about a dead man. 

There are lots of human beasts in this world who live and die as such ; 
and yet, no matter how ornery, how brutal, how selfish, stingy or mean 
a live man may be, nor how many years he has practiced these things, the 
clergyman tells how wonderfully good this mean man has been all his 
life; tells us of his charity, of which no one ever heard while the dead 
man was alive; tells us of his benevolence, and how, in life, he had lived 
without an enemy. What a different man, indeed, is the dead man from 
the live one. 

It does not matter how correct a life a man may lead, he will have ene- 
mies. No matter how good, humane, generous a man may be, there are 
some among his friends, acquaintances and neighbors, who do not like 
him, who are his enemies. It's the same with the tender sex. They all 
do something sometimes that makes people angry, and these people are 
their enemies always. You speak confidentially, sometimes, to people 
about other people, and they betray your confidence and you have made 
an enemy. You do your business in an honorable way; you make an 
effort to be honest ; you try to do everything that is right and in the right 
way, and still, in some one thing you fail, and in that failure you make 
an enemy. 

A man cannot get along at all in this life without making enemies. 
No matter who he is, nor what he does, he is sure to have some enemies. 
He makes them somehow or other, frequently without knowing when or 
how, but they are there just the same, and they never lose an opportunity 
of letting other people know it. 

Therefore, how useless it is for us to try and make everybody our 
friends. We might just as well lead haughty, independent lives as to be 
meek and modest in our demeanor, for we will have enemies just the 
same, and just as many of them, no matter how we live. 



104 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

In our time we have done very much for some people in this world, 
and we know that they have repaid us in slander and scandal. We have 
humiliated ourselves more than once by associating, publicly, with people 
who bore bad reputations, but it was our privilege so to do if we chose, 
and we did so choose. We have, for a good purpose, visited disreputable 
places, and have received a social black eye from our enemies who did 
not know, nor did they want to know, what called us to these ill-favored 
resorts. 

The enemy of a man never sees any good in him, and if he did he 
would never mention it. He is always wrong, and an enemy never gives 
him credit for doing anything that is right and proper and good. Your 
enemy is always on your track, and it's nuts for him to find you doing 
something that he can tell to your enemies, that tliey, in turn, may assist 
in spreading over the community. Your enemy is always on the watch, 
and of course, he can find something against you in your methods or 
your speech, or acts, and it don't take long to spread it over the commu- 
nity, when your enemy gets hold of it. 

You may struggle your best to lead such a life as shall make for you 
friends, but you will fail. You may be perfect in all things save one, and 
in this one you will fall down, and this is where your enemy gets in his 
or her work against you, and how are you going to avoid it? 

We all have our enemies ; some more, some less ; and the greater a bene- 
factor you are, the more kind and humane, the greater do we number our 
enemies, and there is no remedy for it that we know of. Our only sug- 
gestion is to please yourselves; live such lives as will give yourselves the 
greatest satisfaction, bring to yourselves the greatest amount of happi- 
ness; stick closely to your own homes; mind your own business, and 
then let your enemies go it. Let them open out on you. Let them slan- 
der and abuse you. Let them peddle your weaknesses to an eager pub- 
lic. Let them vilify you and always speak ill of you ; do ever}^thing they 
can against you; and if you are safe within the sacred precincts of your 
own home, your enemy cannot injure you much. If in your home, your 
own home, you find enemies, fire them out, and then you will have, at 
least, one spot on this earth where you will be free from your enemies. 



THE PRINT OF THE NAIL. 



Boys, there are lots of preachers in this world, and they are all crammed 
full of views and ideas peculiar to each individual self and creed. Each 
one of them professes to believe the doctrine he preaches. Some are 
real and true and honest in their convictions, and others are frauds and 
impostors. 

The orthodox clergy preach to you of a future life beyond the grave; 
of the soul and its immortality; of heaven and hell. They tell you that 
all the good among us will, by and by, be fitted out with a pair of wings, 
given a golden harp, and that then, forever and forever, we shall have 
nothing to do but to skim lazily in the atmosphere of eternal bliss and 
sing. Of the bad among us, they say we are to be carelessly tumbled 
into an eternal fire that is never quenched, and that there we shall sputter 
and sizzle and roast. But say, boys, the preachers who give you this 
know nothing about it at all. It's an idea they borrowed from their prede- 
cessors, and they, in turn, from theirs. 

Of what is to come and be a million years hence, none of us know; but 
there is one thing we do know, and it is to foster and encourage our 
youth to grapple with that, that the Evangelist lifts up his melodious 
voice week after week. We know for a positive fact, that if we drive a 
nail into a post or board, that, although we may easily withdraw the nail, 
we cannot remove the print the nail has made. We know all about this 
world, and the people in it; we know what is right and what is wrong; 
we can easily tell what is good and what is bad; we know the difference 
between honesty and thievery; we know how to pick out from the 
throng the conscientious man and the hypocrite; we can detect the spuri- 
ous from the genuine every time; and so it is our aim and ambition to 
steer the youth in the right road in this life and let the other look out for 
itself. 

It's practical sermons the Evangelist preaches week after week — ser- 
mons based upon actual experience, actual contact with the people of this 
world and from a positive knowledge gained by bumping up against life's 
rough edges. In brief, we know what we are talking about — the other 
preachers don't, and that's the difiference, and the only difference, between 
our sermons. 

Boys, we have danced and we have paid the fiddler his price. It came 
high, but we had to have it. We have- painted very large cities a bright 



106 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

carmine and we have used wet towels on our head in the mornino-. We 
have "cut up" all the "monkey shines" human inventive genius could 
scratch together and have paid the penalty every time. We have bet on 
the wrong man, the wrong horse, the wrong chip and have settled our 
losses dollar for dollar. We have played "hookey" from school and got 
licked for it. We have sneaked under the circus tent and got kicked out. 
Briefly, boys, we have tried everything en the outside of human nature 
and got worsted every pop. It will be the same with you. 

There is no use talking, boys, you cannot serve two masters— it can't 
be done. You have either got to be a decent, honorable, respectable, 
honest, virtuous man, or a dogoned scoundrel and outlaw. There can be 
no neutrals— no half way position in this fight for life; it's either one or 
the other. If you are determined to associate with vagabonds and social 
rottenness, cleave to that exclusively and don't pollute decent society with 
your festering presence. If you are bound to pursue the broad road tKat 
leads to doom, go it, but don't drag others along with you, and remember 
always the print of the nail. 

You lead a scandalous life, and while you may possibly reform by and 
by, you never can remove from your own hearts and consciences the im- 
pressions your wrong acts have left thereon. The young men who are 
to-day on the downward road are bringing upon themselves many hours 
of regret and much remorse. Their wrong and wicked trips may be fun 
for awhile, but it means tears by and by. The frolic in a dive is fun, but 
when the money you stole from your employer to have this fun is' dis- 
covered, then comes the time when you look into the nail hole and weep. 
The excessive guzzler of booze is having fun, but when the poor devil 
writhes and wriggles and twists with the jim-jams, then comes remorse 
and pain and regret and humiliation and shame and all the other accom- 
panying tortures and terrors. 

So it is, boys, with this world and its aflfairs. If you do wrong you 
will pay the penalty, just as sure as you live, and you will get your punish- 
ment here and right now. You won't have to wait until you reach the 
imaginary hell to meet your chastisement— you are in a real live hell al- 
ready, and the terrors of that place will scrape your bones cleaner than 
a pork-house spare-rib. 

You are not fooling anybody, boys. The Evangelist knows where you 
are nights and how much you got "stuck for." We know how m_any 
corks were pulled for you and how much you still owe on what was in 
the bottles. We have seen the slate in the bar-room and know what's 
charged up against you, and we tell you plainly and straight that this 
means heaps of trouble for you after awhile. 

Boys, straighten out; walk the crack like men; be upright and honest; 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 107 

enjoy your innocent fun, but steer clear of anything that is red — that's a 
bad color — it means danger — it will paralyze you. Seek to live this life 
correctly — never mind the other one. You have to deal with the here, 
not the hereafter. You cannot be true and false at the same time, neither 
good and bad. You must either be a virtuous man or a hypocrite. Come 
over on the right side, boys, and come now, then you won't have to look 
at the ugly imprints your sins have made — ^the Prints of the Nails. 



HOME. 

There are no four letters in any language, put together, which mean so 
much as home. It means happiness or misery; it means delight or dis- 
gust; it means hope or hopejessness; it means clouds or sunshine; it 
means all that is true and pure and good, or all that is false, impure and 
bad. 

A happy home is the silver lining to a summer's cloud; an unhappy one, 
the darkness which betokens gloom. A happy home is a touch of heaven 
here on earth; an unhappy one is a tinge of hell below. A happy home 
is all that is bright and beautiful; an unhappy one is that which breeds 
nightmares and horror. The longest life is short enough to those who 
live in a happy home, while the shortest life is much too long to those 
whose homes are unhappy, and when a happy home is so easily acquired, 
it's passing strange that there are so many unhappy ones. 

It is not necessary that we inhabit palaces in order to lead happy lives ; 
a cabin, or cottage, or two rooms may contain happiness, while the mar- 
ble front may overflow with misery and wretchedness. It is not necessary 
that we "roll in wealth" in order to be happy. On the contrary, the day's 
wages of a contented man will bring to his door great joy and happiness. 

A home is precisely what we make it; we lay the foundation and build 
our domestic structures as we desire, and there are only a few very simple 
but imperative rules we must follow to attain a peaceful, happy home. 
We must make a specialty of one thing, and that is to lose sight of all 
else save the one idea of our domestic circle. We cannot be continually 
crowding our homes with that stuff they call "society" and hope for a 
happy home to continue long. The most solid domestic structure will 
crumble and fall very soon and surely, if we devote more time to social 
matter? than to our homes. 

A wife who worships a silk dress and hates a dish rag won't hold your 
domestic structure together very long, we will give you a pointer on that. 
A husband who thnks more of his club or jovial companions than of his 
wife and home, is loosening the mortar between the bricks of his domestic 
peace and the whole outfit will go to the devil in a bunch by and by. 

There are two other things in this world besides oil and water that will 
not mix, and these are domestic happiness and society. You have got 
to let go your grip on one or the other, my boy, and it's for you to say 
which if the two it shall ije. You cannot shine as a domestic bright light 



MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 109 

and as a society bumble bee at the same time. You cannot reign at the 
front of a respected family and as a social figurehead at one and the same 
time. You cannot be the honored master of a happy home and a second 
hand dude— it must be one or the other, and it's for you to say which it 
shall be; you must choose yourself. 

There are millions of people in the world to-day who are strangers to 
anything that resembles a home of any sort. An army of young men 
cooped up in small rooms at hotels; living in rooms over business blocks; 
sleeping on cots in our banks and commercial houses; eating their meals 
at restaurants, whose daily aim and whole ambition is to have a home of 
their own, and when such a home is secured, it would seem to us that it 
would be fully appreciated and worshipped as something resembling the 
"pearl of great price." 

There are also hundreds of homes, but the sunlight of happiness is not 
found within their walls. The mistress is engrossed in society's meshes; 
the master in his business, and gradually the evil is tightening, and by 
and by it will choke them to death, and all around uh we can see to-day 
the ruins of just such homes. The Evangelist sounds his alarm; he gives 
you a warning that he hopes you will heed. Seek first the happiness of 
your own home, regardless of what people may say. Work diligently; 
be faithful to your business trusts; save money and spend it all in beauti- 
fying your home — in doors and out. We practice what we preach, and 
we will give you all to understand that there is nothing too good for us 
to use in our home. We make our money and we spend it all for that 
we most enjoy — our home, and we want every member of our congrega- 
tion to do the same. Money earned and hoarded will do you no good, 
but every dollar spent in home luxuries and comforts will smooth the 
wrinkles in your face and make you better and happier and more satisfied 
with yourself and contented with the world at large. 

The Evangelist shut down on all society long ago; we have but one 
aim, one am.bition, and that is to surround ourself with all the blessings 
and comforts a home will bring, and we consider all investments in this 
direction well made, and we will compare our home conveniences and 
comforts, with those of any pious old fraud and bet seven dollars we will 
carry oflf first prize. 

We have a barrel of beer in our cellar; a keg of whisky under the stairs; 
a box of cigars in our room. You will also find five bibles and prayer 
books and the works of Tom Paine and Ingersoll on our mantels and 
tables, you will find hymn books and rock and rye in the same room. 
We carry in stock everything thfit all classes who visit us may desire or 
demand, and no matter what the tastes or inclinations of our friends may 
be, we can and alw^ays do accommodate them. 



110 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

We believe in surrounding ourselves with every comfort and luxury; 
we enjoy these ourselves and it gives us pleasure that our friends can do 
the same, and if we were worth a million we would blow every dollar of it 
in beautifying our home and filling it fuller and fuller with those worldly 
things that promote happiness and contentment. We believe in getting 
all the enjoyment there is in this life out of it, and we can see no enjoy- 
ment in piling up dollars for somebody else to spend, and if we can only 
succeed in making every member of our congregation see this matter 
of a happy home as we do, we shall be grateful and thankful and glad, 
and satisfied that we have done a good work as an Evangelist here on 
earth. 



THE DRINKING MAN. 



As it requires all sorts, kind and conditions of men to make up this 
great world in which we live, it probably is necessary that a few of each 
sort should have been created as examples, illustrating all the various 
people and their affairs. 

In compliance with this necessity men were made and filled with idea?,, 
notions, habits, customs, and each day as they passed along through life 
they practiced their several and various traits, and this is how the article 
named in the heading of this our Sunday Sermon, happened to be on 
earth. 

If we were all liberal in our ideas we would not adversely criticise the 
doings, acts and performances of our fellow men, but, alas! to perfect 
our condition as a race of people we must have the crank, the kicker, the 
fault-finder, just as we have the reverse of these, and we are all mixed up 
together and belong to one great family. 

There is one class of people who believe in the use of stimulants, an- 
other who oppose it, and if the latter were only as liberal and generous 
in their views and opinions as the former, everything would move along 
smoothly. But, unfortunately, they are not, and this fact precipitates 
trouble among the classes. 

The whole human family follow as a rule their predecessors. The son 
absorbs the views of his father and does precisely as he has done. The 
son's views on religion, politics, morals and all else are exactly what his 
father's were, and the boy thinks, acts and believes what his father before 
him did. 

The drinking man then is a creation, and he fills his niche in life, 
exactly as do the other creations. He associates with his kind and does 
not disturb or interfere in any with his neighbors. He uses this stimu- 
lant every day just as his father did before him and sees in it no wrong, 
no harm. He sits at the table and sips away at his mug of beer and 
thinks only of pleasing things — indulging himself merely and only for 
social purposes. He does not consider that he is injuring himself or his 
fellows, and so he proceeds along day by day. 

Occasionally, however, you will find a drinking man who does not 
possess the power of mind sufficiently strong to control himself, and this 
isolated case is used by fanatics as the corner stone upon which to build 
a structure having for its end in view the utter annihilation of the beverage 



112 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

that affords so much comfort, pleasure, happiness to so many others, and 
this is the starter of our trouble. 

The world over you can see husbands and wives take their little ones 
to summer resorts, and seated together around a little table they happily 
sip their cooling and refreshing beer and are as contented a circle as you 
would wish to see. None of this little group ever indulge too freely — 
beyond their capacity — they just sit there, drink their beer and are happy 
the whole day long. 

But unfortunately for us all, there comes along by and by a man who 
does not act in this manner. He loads himself at a gulp and then pro- 
ceeds to make himself a nuisance and things unpleasant for every one 
around him. 

Now, the fanatic in his comments does not point to the happy and con- 
tented family sitting at the table — a half dozen or more of them — but they 
select this one obnoxious nuisance and upon him build their arguments 
against the use of liquid stimulants, and right here is where the injustice 
to a large and respectable class of people comes in. The whole line is 
made to suffer because of the indiscretions of one single human being. 

To apply the term, a drinking man, to any single individual, does not 
mean that he is necessarily a loafer or a bum. Thousands of men are 
drinking men and yet you never saw one of them overcome by the stimu- 
lants they absorb. 

The nabobs of this country — great railroad men, financiers, politicians, 
inaugurators of great schemes, promoters of big enterprises, all have their 
side-board in which is stored a stock of liquid refreshments. When con- 
ventions, or encampments, or gatherings of any and all kinds are held 
you never saw the people of California attend these assemblies without 
one car in tlieir train being filled with something refreshing in kegs and 
bottles for the drinking men of the party, and the drinking men are not 
drunkards either, nor sots, nor loafers, nor bums. The drinking man is, 
as a rule, as much and oftener more of a gentleman than those who do 
not drink, and were it not for the fact that the latter interfere upon every 
possible occasion with the former, there would be no trouble in this world 
on that score. 

Our mission in this life is to attempt to educate people to attend strictly 
and only to their own affairs. Do yourself what you believe to be right 
and extend the same privilege to others. 

If you desire to attend church do so, and if your neighbors do not, leave 
them alone with their own convictions on that point. If your neighbor 
wants a drink let him have it — he is responsible, not you. You do not 
have to indulge because he does. You each have a personal privilege 
that the other is bound to respect, and if we all did this the drinking man 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 113 

would receive no more attention, no more comment, no more criticism; 
would be no more of a relic or curiosity than the man who does riot drink. 
Let each man in this big world be the custodian of his own afifairs, and 
then much, if not all, that breeds trouble would be avoided. Live and 
let live; enjoy your own opinions and habits and permit your neighbor 
to do so unmolested. When you learn to do this you have succeeded 
in removing one prominent obstruction in the navigation of life's great 
river. 



MASKS AND FACES. 



In the molding of the human face is a mark of skill which certainly re- 
flects marvelous credit upon the creator. Millions upon millions of 
human faces, and yet no two of them alike. While the outline is 
there; while the general construction is the same, yet the features are 
entirely different. 

The human face is the beveled edged mirror of life itself, and in it is 
reflected our character; our pleasure, our pain, and yet, so delicately is this 
face arranged that it can be used to counterfeit, to mislead, to deceive. 

By the smile, which nature has given us power to create on our faces, 
we indicate our joy, or, if a malicious spirit wills it so, it also indicates a 
deceiver — a fraud, but the latter is the mask, not the face. 

People may smile with this mask with a heart breaking from its weight 
of woe. People may smile with this mask, while plotting our destruc- 
tion. People may smile as Judas did smile, while laying their plans to 
betray us. 

Most people of this world have both the face and the mask, and they 
wear the latter to cover the former when occasion requires. Yet, the pro- 
visions of nature are so carefully and wisely made, that the mask is pene- 
trated and the face is seen by those who have a right to see it. Somehow 
or other the smile of a hypocrite and fraud has something suspicious 
about it; it lacks the true ring of the genuine, and we detect its truth be- 
fore damage is done. Now and then, however, we are deceived and mis- 
take the mask for the face. 

We see a meek-loving, mild, simple, innocent-appearing saint, as he 
smiles upon us. We have been taught to respect this man because of his 
professions of piety. He holds an office in a prominent church and passes 
current in the community for good, and yet in the seclusion of his own 
home he beats his wife. The Evangelist knows such a man and can give 
his name. He is a case of mask and face, and he uses each as occasion 
requires or his purposes demand. 

The detective is one of the necessary pieces of machinery which the de- 
tection of crime and criminals make necessary, and how nicely can he 
adapt himself to his profession. He has many masks which cover his 
one single face, as the time and necessity require. He mingles with 
thieves, talks their vocabulary, assumes their customs, habits and ways; 
he allows himself to be arrested and goes to jail with the other law break- 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 115 

ers, merely and only to secure the evidence his profession requires for 
the conviction of the law-breakers. 

Young men who are notorious for their many immoral ways of life,, 
assume their masks every time they call on a reputable young lady at her 
home. We know young men who are mentally and morally and 
physically diseased who appear in our best society, covered with their 
masks, and the world swallows their deceit and treachery as a matter of 
fact. 

Young ladies who lie in bed until noon, while their mothers do the 
housework, cover their faces with masks "when evening comes, and they 
appear in the parlor to receive their young gentlemen callers. These 
young women who appear so neat and attractive at night are terrible 
slouches during the day at home. Their hair uncombed, perhaps their 
faces, even unwashed, hosiery full of holes, and slip shod slippers on their 
neglected feet. At the evening time they all wear masks. The face of 
the home for their home people, and the face of the evening for their 
friends are entirely unlike, although worn by the same young woman — 
it's the mask and the face. 

The rascal who joins some prominent church that he may better ply 
his vocation; that he may more profitably work his nafarious designs; 
that he may secure easier victims, wears his mask. The pretended friend 
who secures from you social or professional secrets only to repeat them 
to your erjemy, wears a mask,, All those who are morally corrupt, who 
are allowed the privileges of good associations, wear masks, and if he will, 
your family physician can tell you of many grossly immoral people who 
are welcome guests in our best homes. They all wear masks. 

These are not new ideas. This system of two faces has been in con- 
stant use for years. It is as old as the world itself, and people have always 
practiced the wearing of faces and masks. 

Indeed, it is as we have already said, a most impossible thing to telf 
at times which is the face, which the mask. We have known people to- 
laugh heartily "before folks" whose hearts have been burdened with 
secrets and who threw themselves upon their beds and wept bitterly the 
moment they were alone. That you saw was the mask. That you did 
not see, the face. 

People who walk the streets in clothes unpaid for; those who owe for 
their board; those who are daily practicing upon you their deceits and 
frauds and swindles, all wear masks and always will. Try as hard as you 
may, you cannot detect these deceptions until, after awhile, an accident 
reveals to you the truth. Then you are astounded at the information and 
surprised at your own blindness and at the stupidity of yourself at being 
so easily gulled. • . ' ' i J 



116 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

There is but a single way to proceed through this Hfe, and that is to 
beHeve nothing that you do not absolutely know, and even discount what 
you know by half to provide for mistakes. We have often looked at people 
and wondered how much of that they were telling us, they would have 
us believe. We have often heard people extolling the virtues of others, 
whom we knew to be unworthy of the compliments they were receiving. 

The Evangelist is a social skeptic — made so by the circumstances sur- 
rounding his own life. He has seen so much deceit and hypocrisy; so 
much of this mask and face business; so many of the impositions prac- 
ticed upon humanity; so much that was fraudulent in character and 
morals, that we are an absolute unbeliever in any other theory than that 
all the people of this world wear Masks and Faces. 



TROUBLE. 



Ever since that first chump and idiot Adam, bit into that apple, the 
world has been full of trouble. It is a matter of some doubt whether the 
bite he took on that memorable occasion is the real cause for all the 
trouble in the world, but it dates from thai time and it is the result of the 
example set by the world's first fool. 

With a whole orchard groaning beneath its weight of apples, it beats 
the average man to know why Adam wanted to chaw on the particular 
one which Eve gave him, but he did just the same; he took it, bit into it 
and trouble has been with us ever since. 

The history of Adam is of the first man who wanted the earth. What a 
snap he had and yet he did not have enough sense to appreciate it. Lo- 
cated as he was in his summer garden, surrounded by everything to make 
life enjoyable, with Eve to assist him in the duties of the place; he had no 
socks to send to the laundry, no mending to do, no buttons to sew on his 
shirts, no shoes to wear out. He had no fires to make cold mornings and 
nothing to do in hot weather but to sit under fig trees, chew his finger 
nails and admire Eve, and yet with this soft snap, the dogoned idiot was 
not satisfied and so he was willingly led into temptation and the devil 
has been to pay ever since. 

We live along in this life dissatisfied every day, dissatisfied with what 
we have and are continually reaching out for that we have not and cannot 
get. We are in trouble all the while, and so if we believe that Adam is 
the cause of it all, we can hardly be blamed for entertaining a mighty 
poor opinion of Adam. 

There are thousands of people now days just like the first chump, they 
have everything on earth that contributes to enjoyment and comfort and 
yet do not value, do not appreciate it. With the abundance which sur- 
rounds them, they still are short on something they want but cannot 
possess themselves of — they are in trouble. 

But this only proves that most people are themselves only and alone to 
blame for much of the trouble that surrounds them and it is the lack of 
gratitude, of appreciation, of thankfulness for what they do have and 
ought to enjoy, that is responsible for half their troubles as they exist. 

Once in awhile we are not responsible for the trouble that is upon us; 
we may be satisfied and grateful for what we are and have, but some one 
else may heap upon us burdens we. cannot bear and thus the trouble we 



118 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

have is not our own, but we have it all the same, and we suffer, as keenly 
as though it were our own, and had brought it upon ourselves. But few 
in this life are free from trouble of some sort, perhaps none are. Some 
people are so constituted that they conceal their troubles better than 
others, but they have them just like the rest.' 

We never could understand why all the troubles we are forced to 
endure, are visited upon us. It does not appear clear to us that they are 
at all necessary. Any one with brains can appreciate his blessings and 
enjoy them and trouble is not needful that he may more fully appreciate 
his pleasures. 

Trouble comes to us in a variety of shapes, and what worries one man 
almost to death, is no terrors for another. The greatest and heaviest bur- 
dens of one man are very light for another and he carries them easily. It 
worries one man to owe a bill he cannot pay, while another will stand 
his debtor off with a smile on his face that is bewildering to the sensitive 
man. The trouble of one is nothing to the other. The happiness of one 
family annoys another and fills them with envy and rage. The pros- 
perity of one man makes another one jealous and angry. The success 
of one man is poison to another and all this causes us trouble. We invest 
our money in mines or stock and lose it; we bet on a candidate and lose; 
we mortgage our home to help us out of financial difficulty, and they fore- 
close on us and we find ourselves in the street. We start in business and 
it does not pay; we owe for our board and washing and lots of other 
things and it all makes trouble. We are ambitious and cannot gratify it ; 
we earnestly desire some special thing and cannot get it; some other 
fellow walks off with the girl on whom we have banked heavily — whom 
we have fed, for years, on ice cream and caramels ; we try to push our big 
foot into a little shoe ; the strings of our liver pad break ; our shirts and 
collars don't fit; we have bunions and corns and all sorts of aches and 
pains which cause us tro^ible. 

Our children go wrong; our schemes don't pan out; our plans mis- 
carry; our calculations do not work as we intended they should, and so 
we are always in some sort of trouble. 

Part of the troubles we have to bear are real and serious and hard, but 
many of them are imaginary and could be avoided if we chose. We, 
like old Adam, allow ourselves to be led into temptation and it makes us 
trouble; we prance about among the joints night, and trouble comes with 
the morning. We visit another man's wife, and climb out of back win- 
dows and over back fences as we flee from the wrath to come. We do all 
sorts of things we need not do and the result is trouble. 

So my beloved what's the use of always worrying yourselves over what 
is sure to come to all of us. From the very day the world began until 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 119 

the present time, we have all had our annoyances, our trials, our troubles. 
The same snake that wiggled in the grass in Adam's summer garden, is 
in ours to-day, the same Eve who persuaded Adam is on deck now; 
using her beauty to lead us astray ; the same fruits are growing on our 
vines and trees and the same crowd is skulking along the highways seek- 
ing a favorable opportunity to snatch it. Men whose heads are light and 
who are easily influenced are floating around the same to-day as when our 
first parents were chasing butterflies and grasshoppers in Eden. The same 
weaknesses, the same follies, exist, the same charms lure us away from 
the straight and narrow way, and the same penalties and punishments are 
meted out to all of us who tread the forbidden paths. We eat and sleep 
and live — day by day the same. We have some pleasure and much 
trouble and so it will be until the angel toots for us and we are driven to 
our corner to await the call of time. Whether there is anything after this 
life we do not know, but this one for a fact is full of that which we preach 
to-day — Trouble. 



WHAT IS LIFE? 



Life is a fact, and yet if we were to ask a thousand different people 
what it is, each would answer you differently. Life is a reality, and yet 
as mysterious as it is real. Life is to one person a burden, to another a 
pleasure; to one a success; to another a failure; to one a bright sail, to 
another a rough voyage ; and so, were you to ask what life is, each of these 
would answer according to their own experience and situations. To 
some of us life is the most deceptive of all deceitful things ; it is a delusion 
and a snare, and he who can live a successful life and say to you that he 
has so lived we should look upon as one of this world's natural curiosities. 

If we had the management of our own affairs ; our own health ; our own 
business. If we could regulate the lives of our children and steer them 
along pleasant paths; if we could calculate on our own fortunes; if we 
could ward off disaster and peril; if we could prevent broken bones, boils 
and carbuncles; if we could head off the belly-ache and cramps; if we 
could stand off death, perhaps then life could be made a pleasure and a 
peace. But while we have no voice in the management of our own livers, 
and hearts and bowels, we cannot be sure that life will not prove to us a 
pain and nuisance. 

There is much in life that is pleasant, and we enjoy it hugely, but im- 
mediately following our joy comes sorrow, remorse, heartache, sickness, 
pain and a thousand other things that detroy the fun we have had. 

The absorption of budge in reasonable quantities is fun; a night out 
with the boys is fun; the devouring of a stolen watermelon is fun; the 
rope stretched across the sidewalk and the toppling over of the unfortu- 
nate devil whose chin hits it, is fun ; the can tied to a pup's tail makes lots 
of fun for the boys. But say, the after-clap is what hurts. The first of 
these are things that make life desirable and existence a pleasure, but that 
which comes after these is what knocks the spots out of a "feller." To 
swallow the booze means a wet towel and seltzer in the morning, and 
gripes and pain ; a night out with the boys means seven dollars and costs 
and a bruised proboscis and a lame back; the swallowing of the stolen 
watermelon means peppermint and the belly-ache; and so it is all through 
life. It is one pleasure and one pain; one fun and one regret; one "good 
time" and one remorse ; one hearty laugh and one prolonged cry ; one day 
of jolly fun and one day of prostration, wretchedness, humiliation and 
agony. 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 121 

None of us are satisfied with our lot in life ; we are always reaching out 
for something we cannot have. If we are fortunate enough to be pro- 
vided with one thing, we want something else, and when that is given us 
we stretch out our claws for more, and thus do we proceed day after day 
and year after year, until we wear ourselves out worrying over the per- 
plexing mystery of endeavoring to satisfactorily answer the question: 
What is Hfe? 

If people would only learn to be contented with their lives, just as they 
find them, much that now causes unhappiness and dissatisfaction would 
be removed, and when with other lives before us showing the unsatis- 
factory condition of things, it's very strange we do not profit thereby. 

The pulpy, bloated body of millionaire Stewart could not even remain 
and rot in the tomb unmolested. Even after death the success he had 
made of his life was the secret of the robbing of his grave. While Stewart 
was successful, and by industry and faithfulness and honest labor had se- 
cured great wealth, those who stole his bones profited by this example to 
commit crime. What was Stewart's life to him? 

Vanderbilt with his enormous sums of money, died like a dog on the 
floor of his palatial home. What was life to him? 

Lincoln with his massive intellect, his wonderful executive ability; his 
power over men, was shot like a beast. Likewise Garfield. What was 
life to these two great men? 

To be born into this world is to wear a crown of thorns; to live is to 
worry and fret; to exist is a struggle, and to be a man or woman is to 
suffer all the ills that flesh is heir to, and the sooner the human family 
realize this fact the sooner will disappointments cease ; appreciate as soon 
as you can, dear readers, that "man that is bom of woman is of few 
days and full of trouble," and if any of you can figure out the pleasures 
of Hfe without corresponding pains, you can do more than the Evangelist,, 
we assure you. 

Little girls and boys at their play at school have troubles that seem hard 
to bear; the youth and maiden have theirs; those in middle life theirs; 
age bends under its weight, and finally after a battle, either long or short, 
the end comes to us all, and we are tumbled into a hole in the ground; a 
few crocodile tears are shed; a hymn is sung; and we ride back into town 
for another stiff to go through the same performance. What is life? 

The same nature that created mankind created also a peculiar fitness to 
crown it with. To one of us is given a throat and neck, and we warble a 
living out of it. To another is given the power of strength, and we turn 
hand-springs and lift huge burdens for our living; another paints a pic- 
ture; another writes a book; another cracks safes; another sandbags his 
fellow man ; another preaches the go^el ; another 'tends the monkey cage 



122 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

in a circus; another goes as a missionary to a foreign land, to teach the 
gentle savage the way of everlasting bliss ; another steals horses ; another 
plays skillfully on various musical instruments; another teaches the mys- 
tery of three card monte, and this is life. 

One man knocks you on the head and another sews up the cut ; one man 
makes you sick and another cures you; one man sells you clothes and 
another steals 'em; one man gives you a farm and another beats you out 
of it; one man belongs to the church another to a theater; one man builds 
a house and another burns it down, and so it goes and so it has gone for 
ages, and for ages yet to come it will be the same, and now, my beloved, 
if you can from this tell us what life is, out with it, for we all would like 
to know — to have an answer to the subject of our sermon to-day — What 
is Life? 



THE ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



In our earlier lives, we were taught that faith and grace and kindred 
compounds was the "one thing needful," but most of us, after a tussle with 
the world and its peculiar people, have arrived at the conclusion that our 
earlier teachings were in a measure at least, wrong. 

Every young man and woman starting on a voyage of life, has some 
sort of a deep-seated idea of how his or her future life will be spent. 
Some are filled with an enthusiastic endeavor to climb quickly life's steep 
hill and too soon gain its summit. Some are easily and early discouraged 
and give up life's battle, without half an effort. Some plod along in the 
tiresome, weary way that means failure in the end. Some encounter diffi- 
culties in settling on any plan for their future. Some are weak-minded, 
faint-hearted, and flee though none pursue. Some are born tired and 
they always fail. Some are too easily influenced, and accepting bad 
advice, fall down before they have begun to climb. Some enter trades or 
professions nature did not intend they should follow — they are not built 
right and so tumble. Some being poor fear the future and give up. 
Some accidentally stumble upon that which will make them great or very 
small. 

This life is full of curios and of all the relics and curiosities, the human 
race is the boss, and that such exist is evidence enough that the world 
could not be other than what it is. 

We are a firm believer in ambition; we believe in making a manly, 
womanly struggle to be a success in this world and we always feel like 
slapping a successful man on the back for a bully boy. But so long as 
we are filled with the peculiar element which makes all man and woman- 
kind peculiar, we do not see how we can avoid very well being just what 
we are. 

Cleveland, playing penuckle in Buffalo, was the same man as he who 
is president of our country to-day, and yet, we venture to say that the idea 
of holding his present position never once entered his mind years ago. 

The histories of the world's great men and women tell us that they 
came from very humble stock, and from candle maker's son, Christopher 
Columbus, down through all the generations, which have produced 
Schiller, Goethe, Washington, Lincoln and all the rest, we ought to find 
hope, for each of our chances are equal to any of those who have lived 
and died before us. 



124 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

Suffering Peter, do you catch onto the fact that your lives are sHpping- 
away terribly fast young man. The faucet of life's molasses barrel is wide 
open, and the contents of that cask are emptying drop by drop, and before 
you realize the fact a hollow sound will be the response to the tap with a 
stick you give upon the staves of life's tub. 

The daily duties of each and every life are quite the same, although va- 
ried consequent upon the different situations we find ourselves in. The 
man rolling in boodle gets only what you get — something to eat and 
drink and wear and a place to rest his weary head when night comes on. 
The only difference is that if we are blessed with cash, our food will be 
more dainty, our clothes of a finer fabric, our drinks more aristrocratic, 
our bed softer. But the weary bum sleeps just as soundly on a board in 
the police station, as the King of Bavaria upon his bedstead that took 
forty men forty years to build. The homeless vagabond glides through 
each day somehow or other with his ragged suit as he who is arrayed in 
purple and fine linen. 

We can't all be saints; some of us must sin. We can't 'all wear line 
clothes ; some of us must be clad in tatters. We can't all ride ; some must 
walk, but we will tell you, my beloved, what we can do — all of us. We 
can, if we will, ease our lots in life until they may not seem half so gloomy 
and pitiless and sad. We can, no matter how humble we are, nor how 
small our homes, nor how frugal our diet, we can, if we will, be happy, 
and it all lies with ourselves to say whether we shall be so or not. 

It's very simple, this plan of ours, but the discipline must be rigid. We 
must practice economy in our domestic affairs; v;e must learn what con- 
tentment means; we must not be envious; nor jealous, or selfish either; 
we must appreciate what we are and have and make up our minds to be 
satisfied. 

We care not how humble is the home, it can be made a paradise on earth, 
if contentment dwells therein. We can be a happy people and family, 
if we envy not the superior situations of our acquaintances, and we tell 
you now that many a good man is in jail to-day for embezzling the funds 
that went to encourage extravagance of living and dress. Many a natur- 
ally good woman is dragging herself along through life to-day in misery 
of body and mind, because of the commission of error caused by a desire 
to live in places and positions beyond her financial ability. A lifetime of 
agony is endured and untold suffering entailed upon many innocent 
people by fashions and follies that could have been avoided, as well as not. 

My friends, let me advise you a little, and if you accept that advice, your 
lives will be the pleasanter, the happier therefor. We should all be dili- 
gent and industrious and frugal. We should attend strictly to our own 
business, which produces our living, but, there must be a time given to the 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 125 

enjoyment of our homes; we must take the time to be with our wives and 
children; we must learn that, of all the duties, all the demands, all the 
requirements upon our ability and time, we owe our homes the first, and 
we religiously believe, that when we appear at the gates of heaven, the 
very first question Pete will ask us, will be : "have you always loved your 
wives and children and home?" If you answer yes and can prove it, you 
will sit among the ransomed. If no, a fork will tear its way into your 
toughened hide, and you will be tossed among those in hell, who while 
on earth, forsook and forgot their wives and homes and babies, in their 
selfish ambition to accumulate the one thing needful. 



AMBITION. 



To be ambitious is manly, womanly; to seek to better one's worldly 
condition is not a sin; to seek to improve our financial standing is cred- 
itable; to strive to prosper, struggle to earn and save, is something of 
which all man and womankind may well be proud. 

When you see a man or woman who think they have reached the sum- 
mit of their ambition and sit themselves down to sufi("er life's remnant in 
idleness, you encounter the very worst stumbling blocks of civilized times. 
When you bump up against a man who tells you his business is as large 
as he can well handle, you may know dead sure, you have struck a crank. 

This world is filled with shiftless, lazy, idle men and slouchy women, 
who merely exist from day to day. They have no ambition beyond the 
hour, and from day to day they drag themselves in every one's way. 
They are void of the commonest sympathies for those in trouble; they 
know not how to love ; they are wanting in delicacy and sympathy ; they 
are hangers-on to life's brightest side, waiting for something to turn up. 
The "world owes them a living," say they, and thus from hour to hour 
they hang on and look ahead and wait and sleep and hope. 

It's tough on young men and women who have been delicately reared ; 
who have had homes and parents who have always provided for their 
every want, to be obliged to forsake their happy surroundings and en- 
gage in some menial employment for a livelihood. It's tough to enter 
the ranks of hard labor for those who have never known what it was to 
want for anything. It's tough to be "cut" on the street by your former 
associates who have been more fortunate than yourself. It's tough to 
pass homes of elegance in which you were once a welcome guest, and 
know that its inmates no longer recognize you because you are now 
obliged to work for a living. It's tough to see people clad in the sumptu- 
ous raiment your frame was once arrayed in, and then look at your own 
calico or hand-me-down. It's tough to hear sweet music floating away 
on the midnight air and listen to the slippered feet as they glide along the 
ball-room floor, while you are perched on a high stool in some counting- 
room, or doing some other mind-wrecking labor for your living. It's 
tough to walk into the fashionable church and be sized up by the usher 
and seated the third seat from the rear, because your wardrobe gives it 
away that you work for your living. It's tough to ask the loan of the 
price of a drink that is to brace you up and collect your shattered nerves. 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 127 

But this comes to us all. And so it is, that ambition to remove yourself 
from these unpleasant situations, is honorable. 

The world has no sympathy for any man or woman who is down in 
the mouth, or run over at the heel; this world's people have no pity for 
you ; they care nothing for your troubles, your sorrows, your afflictions. 
They only call him a fool who gives way; lets down under the weight of 
his burdens, and so once more is ambition to recover from such misfor- 
tunes an honor to any man or woman. 

There comes a time in all our lives when clouds hang very low around 
us; times when our cries of anguish go up to heaven like the wail of a 
lost soul; times when sweet notes of music have a garbled sound, and 
when the piping of sweet song birds are out of tune; times when the 
shadow has chased the sunshine from your home; times when the heart 
is sick and the mind unbalanced, and we seek some secluded comer amid 
the ruin about us and are quite ready to give up in despair. These are 
times to exercise your ambition; these are times for a manly, womanly 
exercise of an honorable ambition, and to seek to remove yourself from 
the mire in which you stick. 

But no matter what you do, you will always find those who will belittle 
your efforts; lie about your past; falsify your present; prejudice their 
cronies against you ; and so, what a fool you are, indeed, to continue your 
own suffering to gratify merely such as oppose your methods. 

Enemies we have on every hand, and they will stoop to any depth to 
annoy an ambitious man. If one's ambition lies in the great world of 
politics, every act outside the paths of rectitude is raked up and published 
against you; if theology is your ambition, some one will discover that 
you were once run in with the bums in the town where you lived fifty 
years before; if medicine is your ambition, it will be discovered that you 
were once a barber or porter in some store, and therefore can know 
nothing of the profession you have chosen. If your ambition leads you 
to the successful summit of any desire, it will be known that once you 
were "one of the boys," and many a lark is charged up against you ; and 
so it is seen that if we wait for the putting in force of our ambition until 
it suited and pleased everybody, we would be found standing alone, at the 
end of life, still holding the bag — an unsuccessful, disappointed, unhappy 
victim of a divided and unreasonable people. 

There is not much encouragement,^ we will admit, in the average life 
of man and womankind, to exercise our ambition. The future is very 
uninviting, unpromising, and the average mind can see little to stimulate 
activity in the exercise of an ambitious nature. Yet none of u« can tell 
what we can do until we try. Sometimes it happens that we discover, by 
accident, that which makes us great, although the happy hit never entered 



128 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

our mind until we clumsily stumbled over it. Some of our most useful 
machinery now in use, was discovered and perfected by men who were 
seeking something entirely different at the start. 

We must try, strive, endeavor, struggle, labor hard and long and with- 
out ceasing, and we must have ambition to do this. Therefore, my un- 
satisfied beloved, you who sit perched on high stools; you who stand all 
the day behind the counters of our stores ; you whose lives are bitter and 
unpromising; you whose hearts are heavy with the forbidding prospects 
before you, take our advice and nerve yourselves for a determined battle 
with fate, and remember what the Evangelist tells you, that your best 
weapon with which to make this fight is Ambition, 



LIFE'S WAYS. 



The life we live is a peculiar thing when you pause a moment and think 
about it; and the more you think the more are you impressed with the 
truth. You may apologize for the mistakes and the errors of men and 
women, but all the same these errors and mistakes come regularly. 

We have in our mind this day a man who so far as we could see, was 
blessed with all of the comforts and blessings and conveniences of this 
life. He had a wife, a beautiful home on a leading residence thorough- 
fare. He had horses and carriages, he had servants and his business 
house was a large and prominent one, and yet with all these comforts — 
all these blessings, all these happy events, we now see him lugged away 
from his home, an imbecile — an intellectual wreck. The beautiful home 
is occupied by strangers, while the owner is having his head rubbed in 
some experienced medical joint far removed from here. 

This man — this wreck of a man never liked the Evangelist and he has 
gone the way of all those idiots who have for years attempted to ^'do" us. 
Away from his palatial home — in some obscure medical headquarters, this 
physical ruin is sitting in the corner with his hat on awaiting the direction 
of his advisers and this, my beloved, is one of life's ways. 

Ah, my beloved, it is not the rich who enjoy the most of this life's 
blessings, by a large majority; it is not those who float in the highest 
social circles who make the best citizens; it is not the most influential, 
apparently who can steer their own selves away from brain disorders ; it 
is not those way up in social or business afifairs who win life's race by a 
long shot and you will, if you observe closely, see that the victor usually 
is one from the humbler ranks of life, while the one who is assisted most 
is the first to fall. 

Every now and then you will see a palatial home being neglected. You 
can see it at a glance. You know that something is wrong. You see 
weeds growing in the sidewalks. You see a general neglected air about 
a place and you wonder and marvel at the great difference between men 
and women in this life. 

We recollect the social gatherings — and we look back to a wedding and 
a feast and we see in that throng — among the guests a man who is now 
being looked after by hired men. The home is darkened — the curtains 
drawn and silence prevails all about the place, all because a weak-minded 



130 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

manager has forgotten his part and so, my beloved, it is with all of this 
life's ways. 

Sometimes men and women, too, are elevated to stations in life that they 
are not competent to fill — nature has not provided them with the mental 
or physical machinery to fill those places satisfactorily and so they make 
a failure of their endeavors. 

Sometimes rich and influential relatives secure a good place for some 
poor relation and the poor relation shows his appreciation by "doing" his 
benefactor. Sometimes real, good, intelligent men and women are forced 
by circumstances to take subordinate places in this life's alTairs and those 
over and above them in authority are not half as brainy, not half so pleas- 
ant or popular but so it is in all of this life's ways. 

As we look back over a quarter of a century, that we have been in busi- 
ness for ourselves, we sometimes marvel at the numerous, the wonderful 
changes that have occurred among those we know. Som.e that were as 
poor as Job's turkey twenty-five years back are simply lousy with boodle 
to-day. Some who lived in elegant home are to-day occupying smaller 
quarters and working for other people on a salary that is small, very small. 
Some a few years back held good and profitable positions, commercially 
or professionally, who are this day struggling hard to get enough to eat 
for themselves and families. Some of those whom we have known have 
lost their reason and have died in insane asylums. Som.e have been 
carted was with soft brains. Some have committed suicide. Some have 
jumped the town and gone no one knows where, leaving behind an army 
of mourners. Some have gone to other parts legitimately and have got 
to the front or fallen from life's ladder to the bottom of the pit where they 
lie even now wretched and helpless. 

The sun shines just the same to-day as it did thousands and thousands 
of years ago and the clouds hang lightly or heavily on different people 
just as they always did — always will and so my beloved it is in all of life's 
ways. 



HOOKS AND EYES, 



For every hook there must be an eye, or the night shirt of a human 
life would not hold itself together. For every pleasure there must be 
a pain, or we should grow selfish, crusty, morbid, unreasonable. For 
every day of bright and delightful sunshine, we must have one of winds 
and waves and storms, or we should soon forget ourselves and our duties. 
to our fellow-men. We enjoy one lovely sail along the river of our lives 
and then encounter a rough passage. For every bird, flying and war- 
bling its sweet songs, there is a mate, and for every fair and pensive 
maiden there is one, somewhere in life, who was created expressly to 
match the maidenly pattern. For every storm of rain an unbrella is 
made, and for every fall of the beautiful snow, a shovel or plow is built, 
with which to shovel it away. For every poison there is an antidote. 
For every disease a medicine just fitted for its cure. The cork is made 
to take the place of a lost limb as well as to stop the necks of bottles. 
Every demand is met by supply. Every event has its cause and effect, 
and every emergency is scientifically provided for. 

We are placed in this world in a manner most mysterious, and we 
leave the life in the same way. We cannot account for either— from 
whence we came or whither we go. It's all a blank, a mystery. 

Our fates and fortunes are unfathomable. We succeed and fail and 
cannot tell why. Oftentimes the most unworthy succeed in life, while 
those justly entitled to life's joys, fail. Sometimes the most ignorant and 
uncultivated people become heads of famous circles, while those of brains- 
and culture, perish from' neglect. We cannot fathom these strange af- 
fairs, nor should we try. There are scores of men in the land to-day who- 
have grown rich on the inventions of those who are starving to death. 
The woods are full of fallen trees that lie rotting on the ground, while 
humanity is freezing for lack of a single armful of wood. We cannot 
comprehend these things. 

The human family are never satisfied, so perhaps it does not matter 
who we are, or how we are, or where we are. It makes no difference 
whether the rain falls or snow flies, some of us will be disappointed. The 
day one man wants fair, another would give boodle to have foul. The 
human idiot seems as contented as the man of brains. The poor want 
to be rich, and the rich" are worried to death in the care of their posses- 
sions. The boy longs for manhood, that he may remove himself from 



132 MEDITATIONS OP TWENTY YEARS. 

the system and discipline of his home, and the man wishes he "were a boy 
again." The old maid hangs over the gate, looking for the lover who 
never comes, and the man wanders alone over the city, wishing he had 
some soft heart into which he could pour his trials and seek relief and 
ease. The homeless man longs for one, and he with the home mortgages 
it to raise the wind for speculating. It's a constant and continual strug- 
gle, and yet we cannot tell how or why. 

We live in all sorts of ways and do all sorts of things for our living. 
The labors of one could not be endured by another. The wise man is 
often a fool, and the fool frequently mistaken for an intellectual bundle. 
We often polish pebbles, while diamonds are neglected and lost. The 
spurious gains an envied circulation, while the genuine lies hidden among 
the rubbish of our lives. We nourish an unfortunate man or woman, 
and they repay our kindness and humanity by vileness. 

We join the church for policy, for business purposes, and they get onto 
us and we are fired. We embrace one political faith and the other side 
hops onto us. We join the lodge and are expelled for non-payment 
of dues. We array ourselves in new clothes and our babies empty the 
molasses can on our outfit. We start a fund in the building association 
for our children, and some of the observers laugh and ridicule our en- 
deavors. Whether we are saint or sinner, some one will kick; and while 
we laugh, some one is bathed in tears. There is a dance in one house, a 
funeral in another. One man has a house full of good things and another 
one would consider the leavings, the waste, a luxury and relish. 

Men and women all over the world are possessed of various likes and 
dislikes, tastes, sentiments, habits, manners, customs, and all the argu- 
ment we can bring to bear, will fail to change them. The people of every 
city, every neighborhood, the members of every family, church and 
school, all think, act and feel differently, just as nature intended they 
should, and so it is no use protesting, for what is, must be. 

Is there not a wise provision in the make-up and conduct of this life's 
affairs, after all? Is it not well that the wheels move right along, just 
the same, day by day, no matter what happens. The sun and moon and 
stars shine and do not shine, just as nature wills, and none of us are con- 
sulted. We must adapt ourselves to the changing conditions from hour 
to hour, from day to day. 

Some of us are doomed to pass through life, a burden to ourselves and 
friends ; some will always be rich, some always poor. Some will toil and 
struggle to gain a living, and some will scarcely know how to spend 
their income. Some will pay rent and some will collect it. Some will 
ride, some will walk all through life. Capable and intellectual men will 
sink away in oblivion and be forgotten, because of habits that have be- 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 133 

come confirmed. Some will join the church and sing psalms, some travel 
over the country with a dancing bear and a violin. Some will be hostlers, 
and cooks, and nurses, and some flunkeys and dudes and dandies. Some 
will chew the bitter cud of disappointment, and some will be hilarious over 
their great success. Some will always be borrowing. Some will be neat 
and tidy, some shiftless and slovenly. Some economical, some spend- 
thrifts. Some pure, and good, and holy, and others will be vagabonds, 
hustling for a livelihood over this world's broad acres. 

It was always so, always will be so, and there is many a Job to-day, 
poulticing his boils, who has never figured in history, and never will. 
There is many an undiscovered Moses in the land to-day, and the raw- 
boned, awkward youth of now, may one day lead hosts. We cannot tell 
and yet, for every pleasure there is a pain ; for every hook, an eye. 



IT WONT '' WASH '' NOW. 



Years ago, when men and women were burned at the stake for express- 
ing opinions of their own, which were far in advance of the stupid ideas 
of their associates; years ago, when the orthodox priesthood could punch 
up the fire, and make their terror-stricken congregation admit that they 
could hear the crackling flames and snufif the sulphuric odors of brim- 
stone, whether they could or not; years ago, when the men used to sit 
on one side of the church and the women on the other, it would have 
proven very impolitic and unprofitable for any man to preach as docs 
the Evangelist to-day. 

But those were days of theories, these are days of facts; those were 
days of superstition and fear, these are days of science and reason ; those 
were days when the parish priest did our thinking for us, these are days 
in which we think for ourselves; those were days when faces were worn 
to remind us of tombstones and graveyards; these are days of smiles 
and sunshine; those were days when the whale and bear "stiffs" were 
absorbed by the people, these are days when we admit these thrilling nar- 
ratives only to "illustrate a text;'' those were days when the souls of men 
and women were the chief objects of our solicitude and thought, these 
are days when the minds and bodies of the sexes are of more account. 
Then, it was the common belief that even a helpless babe would perish 
eternally and the barbarian would be its roasted companion. 

Then it was the sanctuary first and your household last. Then it was 
your ministers' comforts before that of your own firesides; but the Evan- 
gelist is happy to say, that all this has been changed within a hundred 
years, and you, nor any one, can make us believe that Thomas Jefferson, 
Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln are to-day frying in torment, sim- 
ply because, in life, they neglected the main thing that leads to salvation, 
according to the following of faith. 

Show us a man who loves his wife and babies, above everything else 
on the face of the earth, and we will show you a man who is going to 
enjoy whatever there is to enjoy in a future life. Show us a man who 
loves his home and spends all his leisure hours there, and we will show 
you a man in the lead, in this free-for-all race for heaven. Show us a 
man who is honest, and loving, and humane, and charitable, and we will 
show you a man who will be a leader in glory. 

This life we know all about; we know the things that produce happi- 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 135 

ness ; we know the wretchedness and misery that follows a course of dissi- 
pation and sin; we know what virtue means and what its violation will 
bring us to; we know what honesty will do for us, and we know the 
perils of dishonesty; we know what smiles and frowns will do for us; 
we know what happy and unhappy homes are; we know the heart-aches 
that follow a desperate life, and we know the joys unspeakable that come 
with a life of regularity and rectitude ; and, knowing all these things, and 
having been endowed with brains suflEiciently active to distinguish between 
right and wrong, there is no one to blame but ourselves if we fall among 
the Philistines. 

The peacock is a beautiful bird, but when it attempts to sing, we skip; 
a dude is a pleasing sight to look upon, but when we hear him speak, we 
puke ; a fanatic is shaped like a human being, but when we hear him ex- 
press himself, we marvel at the depth of his stupidity and gall. 

An ivy clinging to the wall is fascinating, but touch it, and we are de- 
filed. To drink the seemingly pure and crystal waters of some of our 
springs means death. To gaze upon the female form devine, is conducive 
of much happiness, but when we see her remove her bangs and bustle 
and palpitators and colors and pencil marks from under her eyes, un- 
screw her cork leg and lay aside her glass eye, we find ourselves asking 
ourselves where the "divinity" comes in. 

So it is with the teachings of man; the most plausible theories are 
often the weakest; the most convincing visions are dreadful frauds; the 
most perfect appearing are the grossest deceptions in the world ; the most 
pious looking saint is often the grandest rascal in the universe, who will 
beat you while he prays, and settle for ten cents on a dollar. 

We know men who go to church regularly, who are church officers, 
who lead the prayer meetings, whom we wouldn't trust as far as we could 
sling a bull by the tail. We know sleek and pious looking christians who 
have robbed widows and orphans and who are living in houses to-day 
which they bought with the money they stole; and if you think we can't 
prove this, give the Evangelist a chance and we will give their names. 
We know pious old hypocrites whose faces remind you of a midnight in 
the morgue, who a few years ago settled for ten cents on the dollar and 
beat their creditors out of thousands, and yet you have cheek enough to 
look us in the face and tell us that these ecclesiastical reprobates are go- 
ing straight to paradise, while the honest sinner, who pays his debts, is 
to be consumed with a fire that is never quenched. Well, it won't wash — 
that's all. 

Let us not worry ourselves over the penalties for violating a christian's 
creed, but rather make it a study to do right, as near as we know how. 
Let us lose no time fretting about the big fire of the hereafter, while we 



136 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

can do so much good here on earth. Let us meet each other, man to 
man; clothe the naked; feed the hungry. Let us go out into the street 
and take the poor old bum by the hand and lead him to a soft place to 
lie down. Let us bind up his wounds and give him seltzer and sober 
him up, and then we can appeal to the manhood within him, that was 
hidden away beneath thick coatings of benzine. Let us take the fallen 
sister into a moral atmosphere and show her a chance to live honestly; 
give her a woman's work and show her how she can abandon her wick- 
edness. Let us reason with the unruly boy, and picture the evils of 
wrong to the wayward girl. Never mind their souls. Look after their 
bodies — keep these pure and their souls are in no danger of taint. 

The Evangelist would do his good work here on earth, where we can 
see the good eflfects of our kindness and sympathy, because if the "song 
and dance" the other clergy give us be true, we may not behold the good 
results if it only shows up in paradise — we may not "get there." It's kind- 
ness and charity and forgiveness that we want now — any reprobate can 
possess pity. It's love and affection and benevolence that talks, and all 
this twaddle about purgatory, if you step off the orthodox plank. Won't 
Wash Now Days. 



SUPERSTITIONS. 



The Evangelist has an idea that if we had the power to look into the 
hearts of all men and women and solve the mysteries there, that we should 
find an easy way of accounting for the peculiarities and idiosyncracies of 
the human family; we should be able to solve the problems of life that 
are now puzzling, mysterious, bewildering; we would be able to explain 
many queer actions and strange speeches of people; we would be able to 
clear away much darkness, and let the sunlight into dark places. 

If we knew the make-up of men and women we could then easily un- 
derstand what is now deep and unexplainable. We should, we fear, find 
that many who are rated sane among their fellows would be found a 
"little off," as the commonplace saying goes. We should find that men 
of massive minds have at least one weak spot somewhere in their com- 
positions. We should find that a mind capable of deep reasoning, of 
wide scope, of vast information, can be swayed by a trifle; we should 
find that hearts overflowing with love and tenderness, can be turned 
into an icy receptacle by a simple single disappointment. 

It is a popular notion among all classes that superstition is found only 
among ignorant, unlearned, coarse, common people ; but the Evangelist 
says a vastly different thing, and we know we are correct in our opposite 
views, because we personally know people who are rare specimens of 
genius, who are intelligent, famous, popular, who are weak, very weak, 
on certain simple things. 

Everybody in America knows, and probably two-thirds of us have 
either seen or talked with Henry Ward Beecher. The Evangelist has 
both seen and talked with him, and heard him lecture and preach, and 
if we were to say that this great man had a pet hobby or superstition, we 
would find few who would believe it to be true ; yet it is fact all the same. 
No one in the world will deny Mr. Beecher's great intellectual powers; 
we all admit his eloquence, his intelligence, his wisdom; and we must also 
admit that he has, like all other men, his weaknesses. 

Rev. H. W. Beecher has a funny hobby or superstition, the full scope 
of which will perhaps never be known, as we do not believe he has ever 
explained to any one his actions in the regard of which we speak. His 
peculiarity consists in the accumulation of finger rings, and he has hun- 
dreds of them, of all sorts, shapes and sizes ; picked up here, there, every- 
where, all over the inhabitable warld, and at frequent intervals, Mr. 



138 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

Beecher would sit, quiet and still, all alone, and put a half dozen of these 
rings on each of his fingers and change them from one finger to another, 
hours and hours at a time. He would sit and look at his collection of 
rings and muse and study, and while in this strange fancy, he would 
answer no questions, pay not the slightest attention to any one who might 
speak to him, but acts like one in a dream. By and by, this spell, or 
whatever it is, passes away, and he would lay aside his rings, and then 
we find him bright, entertaining, interesting and level-headed. 

This is a superstition of some sort; a light mental irregularity that may 
perhaps never be satisfactorily explained away. It is one of the supersti- 
tions of intelligent men that we cannot understand, and of which we 
preach to-day. 

We know men right here in this city who are capable, bright, intellec- 
tual, who are possessed of similar fancies. They are rational and solid 
on every topic save one strange peculiarity which, at times, at least, seizes 
complete control of them. 

We venture to say that if our readers would take the time and trouble 
to enquire of their friends, whom they meet on our thoroughfares, day by 
day, that they would find that nine out of every ten of them carry a buck- 
eye, or coin, or piece of leather, or a pebble in one of their pockets. You 
ask them why, and they will say: "For luck." They laugh as they an- 
swer you thus lightly, and yet, in their very pockets is the positive evi- 
dence that convicts them of a superstition. 

We know a gentleman in, this city, and he is a smart, active business 
man, too, with every capability that denotes an intelligent gentleman. 
He is sound on commercial and financial matters, and yet, you could not, 
by any sort of a threat or bribe, induce this gentleman to enter a house or 
room with his left foot first If, by any accident, he should pass through 
a door and his left foot should be thrown first over the threshold, he 
would immediately retrace his steps and enter again, with his right foot 
first over the sill. We have frequently spoken to him of this peculiarity 
and he says he cannot explain it; he does not know why he does it, but 
says a mysterious something forbids his entering through a door left 
foot first. He has endeavored for years to break away from this subtle 
fascination, but tells us it is an absolute, utter impossibility. This is 
another species of superstition. 

Seeing the moon over the left shoulder brings bad luck and over the 
right, good luck, according to the ideas of some people, and they firmly 
believe it, too, and no manner of reasoning force can change their super- 
stition. 

We don't believe that ycu can find a river or ocean captain in the world 
who will set sail on his craft if there is a preacher and a gray horse on 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 139 

board. One or the other would have to be removed or he would not 
sail. This sentiment is universal among steamboat captains, and you 
cannot shake this superstition out of them. 

Look about you and tell us how many residences and offices you know 
where horse-shoes are hanging over the door. There are thousands of 
them all over the country, and those horse-shoes hang there, not because 
they are ornaments, by any manner of means; but as a gratification of 
a superstitious fancy that grapples human hearts now and then. This 
is but another breed of the superstitions of men and women. 

The howl of a dog means death, as some people view it. The visit of 
a black cat to your kitchen door, according to some, means a dreadful 
calamity that is about to overwhelm the family visited. A bird flying 
in at your open window, is a positive indication of misfortune, as some 
of our superstitious brethren and sisters reason. A tea leaf in your cup 
means that you will have visitors. The burning of your ears means that 
some one is talking about you. To dream of the dead means that, on the 
following day, you will receive a letter from a living relative. 

We are personally acquainted with a gentleman in another city who, just 
just before visiting at night, touches a particular spot on the wall with 
his index finger three times. He cannot tell you why he does it, but if 
in his business hurry he should forget this "funny business," he can't 
sleep, and must and does rise and perform his superstitious jugglery. He 
is a wise man, too, and so far as we know, is an eminently successful one, 
but this peculiar superstition has seized possession of him, and he cannot 
shake it off. We know people who will not sleep with their heads toward 
the south, nor with their heads toward the rear of a train in a sleeping 
car, nor could you hire, bribe or frighten them into a departure from this 
peculiar superstitious fancy of theirs. 

Our readers all know wives who would not, under any circumstances, 
take their wedding rings from their fingers, and some of them have worn 
these rings for years and years, because of a superstitious dread of some- 
thing terrible which would surely overtake them if their rings should be 
removed. 

The Evangelist might go on for hours and hours and write columns of 
such actual instances of the positive superstitions of people, all people; 
and we do not believe that one in a million are without a peculiarity of 
some sort — without one or more superstitions. This fancy or fatality, 
or humbuggery, or idiocy, or fear, or superstition, or whatever it is, has 
possession of thousands, and it is only accidentally that we discover it 
now and then. If these absurd fancies appeared only in those who are 
known for their mental weakness, we could readily account for it; but 
when men and women, noted for their superior mental conditions and 



140 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

great level-headedness, are possessed of these strange fascinations, we are 
up a stump to account for or explain it, and so it is as we say, that all 
those who are rated sane are not altogether so upon all subjects and mat- 
ters. 

The human head and heart are singularly constructed parts of our 
anatomy, and the same head and heart that is capable of the most phe- 
nomenal inventions and discoveries, exhibits at times, the most idiotic 
and reasonless frailties. The most elequent of men and women are now 
and then simpletons, and the longest head and deepest heart are once in 
a while the dullest parts of our make-up. 

We claim that superstition and its companion and chum, fear, are more 
deeply seated in more human hearts than our readers have any idea of, 
and without attempting to explain away the fancies and peculiarities of 
all men and women ; without trying to solve these strange antics of this 
world's people; without mirth or grief, we onfy say, that every man, 
woman, girl and boy, who have arrived at the age of reason, are at certain 
times and upon certain topics, "ofif their nut" and possessed of ths sub- 
ject of our sermon — Superstitions. 



SHAMS, SHODDIES AND DECEPTIONS. 



The people of America are noted for their shams and humbuggery, 
and deceptions are made as much of a subject for study as any of the 
lessons taught by our text-books. Indeed, it seems to us that more at- 
tention is paid to the art of successful deception, than to the plain, real, 
truthful affairs of this life. 

If people would be natural ; if they would live naturally, act naturally, 
it might interfere with their social standing or business, but it would pre- 
vent much of the trouble that follows fraud and deceit. In this age, how- 
ever, it seems unnatural to be natural, and so everybody indulges in de- 
ception and shams. 

Not one person in a thousand acts naturally; it would not do, for it 
would reveal objectionable features in the composition of our friends that 
we should not like, and so, by common consent, we put up with what we 
know to be unreal. 

Shams and shoddies, deceptions and frauds appear to us in thousands 
of ways and are practiced by thousands of people. Some deceive us with 
an ease and grace that prove them experts in the business, while others 
make sorry work of it, and thus give themselves dead away every time. 
Every one of our readers know people who are professionals in the art 
of deceiving, and yet it being none of our business, we make no com- 
ments. You know ladies who are elegantly dressed and create favorable 
impressions on the street by their elaborate exteriors, whose skirts and 
underwear are torn and ill-kept, and whose hose are full of holes. 

We know people who ride in elegant carriages and keep a full line of 
servants, whose homes are barren of even ordinary comforts. We know 
people who shine brilliantly as society people, who live in elegant houses, 
who feed on bread and molasses, starve themselves, in fact, that they 
may "cut a swell" before people. We know men whose undershirts are 
fringed with rags and whose socks are not mates and very old, whose 
fingers and shirt fronts are covered with diamonds. We know women 
wrapped in costly robes, who are slovens, and who, when at home, are 
covered by greasy wrappers and sit in corners thick with cobwebs and the 
accumulations of dirt. We know men who occupy front seats at costly 
places of entertainment, who smoke five-cent cigars or cheap pipes at 
home, in order to save money for these outward evidences of elegance. 
We know women who pinch and scrimp and save in their homes, that 



142 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

they may once a year give a grand lunch for their acquaintances to talk 
about for the next six months. 

We know people who some years ago were menials, and who only 
lived by the greatest manual exertions, who are to-day rolling in luxury. 
They are coarse, ignorant people by nature, and even as they sit lazily 
in their luxurious carriages, they cannot tell you correctly the year the 
Pilgrims landed on our shores. We know men covered with costly gar- 
ments and wearing expensive, fashionable shoes, who have not washed 
their feet for three months ; and women wearing thirty-dollar hats, whose 
ears and necks look as though they had been struck by a cyclone. We 
know men who have appeared at receptions in coats and gloves and neck- 
ties borrowed of friends for the occasion, and women who have secured 
the loan of diamonds in order that they might create a favorable impres- 
sion. 

We know young men who have taken sleigh rides with their favorites, 
who owe for the very shoes they wear and whose names are on every sa- 
loon slate in town; and we know young ladies who sleep till noon, who 
owe for the feathers in their hats, and who could not make a cup of tea to 
save their worthless lives. We know people who are liberal subscribers 
to every enterprise that will be made public, who owe their hired help. 
We know people who are credited with being fashionable, who live on 
corn meal and sorghum. We know people who order the greatest deli- 
cacies at hotels, who live on sow belly at home. We know children who 
put on the most excruciating agonies, whose fathers used to saw wood, 
and whose mothers once took in washing. We know people to-day who 
wear paste diamonds and dollar store watch chains and imitation gew 
gaws. We know business men who deliberately misrepresent their com- 
mercial standing to the agencies, and thus secure credit and goods to carr^"- 
on deception and fraud. 

Every reader of these Sermons knows those among their friends and ac- 
quaintances who practice deception day after day, in order to gain some 
point or gratify some selfish desire. You know housekeepers who apolo- 
gize to callers for answering the door-bell themselves, because their serv- 
ant was out, who have not had a hired girl in their home for a year. This 
is deception. You know housekeepers who "are out" to certain callers 
and "at home" to others. This is deception, and of the meanest sort. You 
know people who flatter at your face and ridicule behind your back. You 
know people who live in their kitchens and only open up their parlors 
on special occasions. You know people who borrow of their neighbors, 
every time company drops in on them unexpectedly. You know people 
who drove drays and were roustabouts on steamboats, who would knock 
your eye out, if you reminded them of the fact to-day. You know people 



MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 14S 

who have elegant Hbraries at home, who could not tell you the name of 
a single volume nor of what it treated, and you know people who are 
deceiving you in their manners and methods every day. 

All the many deceptions and shams which we see all the while, are 
senseless, because we know them to be deceptions and shams, and it only 
makes us smile in derision or express our contempt for those practicing 
them. People have not forgotten as they behold the dude of to-day, how 
his father sawed wood for a living a few years back. They have not for- 
gotten that this same dude gets only seven dollars a week for his labor, 
and yet, nine out of ten of our best familirs, would prefer the meaning- 
less call of an empty-headed fop, to the pleasing visit of a sensible young 
man arrayed in common clothes. 

The fool in diamonds and broadcloth, is a "great catch" at the party, 
while intelligence wrapped in jeans, is a "wall flower," and yet we know 
the fool owes his washwoman and has not money enough to pay for his 
shave. His manners are all acquired and his display counterfeit — he is a 
deception and a sham. 

Experienced persons can tell a true lady or gentleman the moment they 
see them, whether clothed in fine linen or calico; there is a natural air 
surrounding refined people which makes, at once, a place for them in our 
esteem. Under all circumstances, they are easy and graceful and per- 
fectly at home in the society of cultured people, and coarseness is as easily 
detected, although the dress is stunning and the brilliants blinding. 

The world is filled with shams^ — indeed the real is a rarity. The elegant 
dress of a lady, that cost perhaps a hundred or two dollars, is a sham — 
only that portion of the lower half is real; the overskirt may cover a part of 
the elegant dress, that is made of flour sacks; or bed ticks or old towels- 
its a sham. The elegant set of furniture in our bed chambers is half sham. 
The ragged tick that holds the hair, may be soiled and worn, the quilt 
spotted and weak with age but it matters not so long as an elegant white 
spread covers them up. Sham sheets and sham pillow cases are found 
on every bed. A man's elaborate shirt front is no indication that there is 
a tail to the shirt, and the world is none the wiser, so long as the bosom 
is stiff and white and clean. What matters it about the tail. A paper 
collar and paper cuiTs are neat looking but they are shams all the same. 
A pair of twelve dollar shoes may cover feet enclosed in fifteen cent stock- 
ings — but its a sham nevertheless. A woman's face with its paint and 
powder is a sham; indeed everything about her is "made up" from her 
"switch" to her busUe. Her dainty foot as it appears to us may be pitiful 
and painful from the corns growing all over it. Her beautiful teeth may 
be worked on a pivot and she may take them out and shine 'em up every 
night. There is, in New York, a factory where false calves are made as 



144 MEDITATIONS OF TWENTY YEARS. 

a specialty and we have heard of pads and countless other devices calcu- 
lated to deceive us, in the beautiful "form divine" of womanhood of to-day. 

The "get up" of men is no improvement on the women; they are shams. 
They wear shoulder pads and wax their mustaches and dye their whiskers 
and hair, and some of them, we regret to say, wear corsets. Its sickening, 
but true, nevertheless. They carry their arms in slings, when its some 
other part of their outfit that's wrong and in a variety of other ways, do 
they deceive confiding mortality. They are shams and so also are the 
lives they lead. 

Shams are not peculiar to any one thing or any single individual. We 
are all equally guilty and subject to this same censure or ridicule. We 
sham because it seems to serve our purposes better than this real; we 
sham because people seem to like it better; we sham because everybody 
else does; we sham because sham gives better satisfaction than the real. 
We worry ourselves how to create shams, when something real could 
be invented in nmch less time and be more agreeable and often more 
useful. We make it a study how best we can deceive our friends^ — de- 
ceive them in everything; how we eat and walk and transact our business; 
deceive them in regard to our worth, commercially; as to our influence 
and position. We deceive one friend to gratify another, and each and 
every act of our lives is governed by some sham, or deception or fraud. 

It was always so and always will be no doubht, and so, as we daily 
mingle with the men and women of the world, we shall always be thinking 
and wondering how much of what we hear and see is real, and how much 
of it sham, and shoddy and deception. 



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K'BRARY OF CONGRESS 

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